Here's hoping...

Being the television addict that I am, I gauge most things based on TV programme scheduling,. During the intermittent period between Christmas and New Year, the old box forfeited annoyingly German dubbed James Bond re-runs for re-runs of  the year gone by.  Every year,  as we near the last few days and images of the year’s highlights and lowlights flicker by, set against a nauseating emotional soundtrack,  I fight back a cynical tear or two, then click over onto MTV.  This year, I danced to Lady Sovereign in my underpants whilst singing into a hair brush.

This year during that aforementioned intermittent festive period, I did end up watching Chris Rock’s hilarious yet insightful documentary about the Black Hair industry titled ‘Good Hair’. Highlights include an onstage hair dance battle, Ice T reminiscing about how gangster it was to rock up to high school in LA with rollers in his hair, and finding out that hair relaxer (i.e. Sodium Hydroxide) is commonly and fondly referred to as creamy crack amongst women in the African American community. Fascinating viewing.

This got me thinking about the lengths people (especially us women) go through for the sake of our crowning glory. I have by no means what is termed as ‘Nappy’ hair, nor have I had to go through the lengthy and painful procedures that some of the women in ‘Good hair’ have gone through. However, I certainly understand what it is like to contend with being dealt a challenging deck of genetic hair cards.

On many levels I can relate to these women.  Without getting too deep, (because as my mom says, I am way too shallow a cow), hair is very much a postcolonial issue. Anyone living in Western Europe with an ‘ethnic’ background must contend with the media inundating us with Western ideals of what is deemed sexy and attractive. Sexy and attractive in the sense of hair is straight, sleek and shiny.  As the following quote from ‘Good Hair’ amusingly sums up:

‘When your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. When you hair is nappy, they ain’t happy’

Oh Farah, the beacon of Good Hair

Sometimes if my life doesn’t resemble an Herbal Essences commercial, I subconsciously feel I have not lived up to society’s benchmark of beautiful.   If I were to invest half the time, energy and commitment I put into my hair, into writing the novel I have been talking about for the last year, I am sure Booker Prize success would be around the corner.

Being a part of the MTV generation, I am conditioned to think pretty equals my tresses undulating in slow motion before a wind machine, a la practically ALL Jennifer Lopez or Beyonce music videos. I have caught myself wrapped in my towel after a shower and some intense GHD straightening, using my hair dryer as my make shift wind machine and pouting in front of the mirror.

Being of Middle Eastern descent, means that I have, what I like to term Catch 22 or trans-gendered hair. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. Intrinsically it’s curly, yet not wild beautiful rolling Pre-Raphaelite locks, but oscillates more between straight/curly, resulting in Brillo pad fuzz. On one hand most of my friends envy the thick lustrous mane I have, yet on the other, as any Middle Eastern / Mediterranean woman knows, this mane is constantly at war with ever present enemies – frizz and humidity. To quote my cousin recently:

‘…if one more stupid Euro/Westerner tells me I love your curls, I will stab them.’

My good friend Annika, who is on an endless search for the best volumising shampoo, for her wonderfully soft blonde and straight-as-knife Scandinavian hair, thinks I’m a thankless cow for shunning my natural volume.  Volume is something I am in no short supply of and try to tame.  Since childhood, there is nothing I hate more then the moment a new hairdresser realises I have curly-ish hair and tries to convince me to wear my hair natural. My automatic reaction is -  bitch you better get that diffuser away from my head or I am gonna cut you.  This is by no means an extreme reaction,  several times I have been too polite to contest the stylist’s will, resulting in me leaving the salon looking like Tito Jackson crossed with a microphone.

Saviour of the 'do: GHDs

Anyone who has seen my hair au natural is a) Privileged, as that kind of thing  is as rare as sighting Haley’s comet, and b) Puzzled, as the general consenus is ‘Hmmmmm your natural hair doesn’t actually suit you…get the GHD irons out.’

On the subject of GHD Irons (Good Hair Day Irons), I refused to purchase a pair for a while, as I didn’t want to succumb to peer pressure nor did I want to join the band of female chavs of the early Noughties sporting poker straight hair.  I had mastered my blow drying technique since the age of fifteen and endured the ridicule from many past housemates, assuming I had OCD or hygiene issues, due to them thinking the sounds of my industrial strength hair dryer was me vacuuming every morning.

Eventually, I did end up investing in a pair of GHD irons a few years back, and by Jove, now I’m like some scary born again Christian telling anyone who will listen how these ceramic styling tongs, (whose temperature can reach as high as the surface of the sun) have changed my life. To hell with American Express, I never leave home without my GHD iron.

It’s fair to say that the picture I paint of myself is of a rather  high maintenance broad, but let me state for the record, this is really only applicable to my hair.  I sheepishly admit that there are some hair-related reasons (amongst others of course) that  influenced my decision to settle in Berlin. Being relatively far inland, Berlin offers me a dry hair-friendly climate all year round eliminating my first problem; humidity induced frizz.

Magda, my hair saviour at Kaiserschnitt

Here, I also finally found the holy grail of hairdressers, ‘Kaiserschnitt’ in Friedrichshain. Kaiserschitt is  a play with words, as the name translates directly as the ‘Emperor’s Cut’, but also means caesarean section in German. They are the first hairdressers with enough patience to tend to me. They know how to manage both my hair and sedate the neurotic control freak underneath it.

In the past, more often then I care to admit, I have been met with the same unsuccessfully concealed expression of exasperation from an unprepared coiffeur, as they untie my ponytail and see the thick mass they must reign in.  One instance in my early 20’s, a hairstylist literally gave up blow-drying my hair midway, as her arm had seized up in a painful cramp, and I went home with wet hair. At Kaiserschnitt, they are tough rockabilly and punk chicks with a healthy dose of attitude and enough muscle power, who crank up the Ramones on the stereo when the going gets tough.

Before I leave you , let me impart some advice about staying faithful to your hairdresser.  Once you find a hairdresser you trust and love, hold onto them for dear life and don’t take them for granted or cheat on them, for the hair Gods will show you no mercy and retribution is ugly… literally.

A year ago, when I was in Copenhagen for two months, I decided to seek out a salon to get a simple trim. Christ the Danish speak better English than me, yet trust me to find the one Danish stylist that couldn’t speak a word and let her have a go at my hair.  I shall spare you the gruesome details, but let us just say that the result was a near buzz cut at the back of my head with a couple of strands at the front, parading as a weak Louise Brookes bob yet looked more like I was Jack White’s unattractive androgynous younger brother.

Lucky for me on returning to Berlin, the Kaiserschnitt team forgave my indiscretion, as my awful hairdo was punishment enough for straying. Since then, after much pain I have grown the Yentl meets White Stripes hair-don’t out, and my hairdresser and I are stronger than ever. May 2010 be a year of fabulous hair!