After two and a bit years in London I finally found a hairdresser I could work with.
Her name was Mel. She was lovely, she was Croatian, and unlike many a hair dresser in this city she was able to cope with my mane.
The problem I had with many British hairdressers is they seem reluctant to thin hair. It's as if they have never heard of the magic of thinning scissors.
But Mel did her best - she thinned, she layered and seemed to understand the needs of a my giant head of hair and I trusted her to do her work.
And then, a year into our relationship, she was gone.
About three months ago, I headed back to the now Mel-less salon and placed my locks in the hands of another, surely equally talented, stylist, but it was not to be. Sure, she was nice enough, but it was back to a world where thinning scissors cease to exist and I left as big and bouffy as I went in - minus a few split ends.
For a first 20 or so years of my life I guess you could say I had a put-up-with-it/hate relationship with my hair.
Reddish brown (auburn I would remind anyone who suggested it was ginger) thick, unruly and slightly curly with a good dose of frizz. If I were a teen in the 80s I would have been at the forefront of fashion.
As a child and a teenager the only people who had anything nice to say about it was hairdressers and old people. To this day every time I visit a new hairdresser they will say the same exact two things "you have such lovely hair" and "is that your natural colour?" occasionally followed by "some people pay a lot of money to have hair that colour" - oh really, then why don't I see more people with this colour hair then?
In my last year of high school I started dying it - mainly dark brown, but I also experimented with jet black, pink and blue strips and blonde. After that I tried highlights, low lights and tinted shampoos.
It was around this time that I also stopped brushing my hair and what a difference that made! My frizzy red afro was gradually replaced with big waves. Still largely out-of-control, but at least if wasn't so terrible.
Add to this various experiments with hair straighteners (I'm far to lazy to commit the hours needed to make this a regular habit) and you have many years spent fighting nature.
However, somewhere during the last three years of living in London I have come to a place of acceptance.
It's been nearly four years since a piece of foil or dye touched my head and in that time I think I've reached a place of acceptance.
Three months after my last disappointing hair appointment, I ventured out on Saturday to try a different neighbourhood salon on for size and what can I say, I think I've found a winner.
Layers, layers and more layers, plus she did this weird thing where she twisted my hair up and then made three little cuts along the strand and brushed it out. Instantly lighter. Bliss.
In conclusion, the secret to loving my hair: no brush, a spot of well placed thinning and embracing the ranga.
What is your hair relationship?
