Yesterday my brother went on an hour long rant about how long my mum, sister and I spend in the salon. The three of us had left for the salon early in the morning and came back quite late. He just couldn’t wrap his head around wasting so much time on what he deems trifling. Another day I’ll share the choice words I had for him after he called my 20 inch premium Peruvian curls trifling, but today I’ll explain why exactly it takes us women so long to get our hair done.
On the average, if we are getting a weave fixed, it shouldn’t take up to two hours, but most times we find ourselves being in the salon for up to 6 hours (sometimes even more). So let me explain step by step the process of getting our hair done the minute we step in the salon door, using myself as an example.
I walk in and find that as usual, my regular hairdresser has betrayed me by lying about what time she’ll be free and someone else is already in her chair. So I sit and wait for her to round up, if I’m lucky she’s just about finished and if I’m not, she’s just getting started with the customer. So I could be kept waiting for anytime from thirty minutes to over an hour.
My hairdresser finally gets started with me. She’s just done with the cornrows when she pleads with me that she has not eaten since morning and is about to faint. Of course I have to let her go eat, if I don’t want to be continuously jabbed in the head with a needle ”by mistake”of course.
She leaves the salon in search of food, which is going to take approximately thirty minutes, comes back and should use another ten to eat, but because she’s doing more talking than eating, it’ll take another thirty.
She’s back to my hair, and is just about to start the sew-in, when her “sister” or “cousin” who is supposedly in more of a hurry than I am, wants to either just put rollers in her hair or straighten it. Something minor that you just can’t say no to, somehow that minor thing takes another hour.
About three hours are gone now, and I’m not even halfway through getting my hair done. My hairdresser comes back full of apologies and false promises, and continues the hair.
Now after about another hour, she’s finally almost done but there is another problem, while my hairdresser was running around, a fire movie came up on Afmag Yoruba, now there’s no way I’m leaving the salon without finding out whether Kola’s mother is really holding his destiny. It is either that or “Aunty nails” comes around and I am in the middle of a mani/pedi even though I’m already done with my hair, or someone brings gist about her cheating husband. So I’m stuck in the salon until I am done with either scenario or a lot of the time, all.
After all this 5/6 hours have easily passed and even though sometimes we grumble and complain about the “inefficient” service in salons, and how much time we waste there, we honestly (not so) secretly enjoy these visits.