The Price Of Beauty

I love the ongoing experiment that is my hair.  I really do.  But I have finally reached the point where I think my hair might be costing me more than money.

Over the past 4-5 years, my brown curls have seen some blonde, some copper, some lilac and some red; I am currently sporting 2 shades of red and a white blonde.  I colour my hair perhaps twice a year, and I do it because I was afraid to for many years.  Over the course of the years, I built up a meaningful relationship with my colorist -- he gets it when I come in and say, "but please don't make it look natural."  He's spent a fair amount of time thinking about where to put the colours so my hair works under stage lights (I am so totally a creature of artifice!)  And then.  Then, he changes salons.

Of course, I decided to go with him.  You can imagine my concern when I called for an appointment and mentioned the wheelchair.  Colorist has moved to a new hip salon in San Francisco; it's on the second floor.  This is supposedly no problem; there is an accessible/handicap area.  I'm a little worried when I hear that, but there's no way I can imagine the actual situation.

The accessible area is downstairs, separate from the main salon.  It's through the back door, of course.  And it's essentially a hairdressing sink, a mirror or two, some lights, a couple of chairs and a product table in a slightly wider part of the hallway (as it turns a corner).  The walls have been painted and someone has stuck an attempt at ornamentation as you enter the space. If you turn your head, you see the mailboxes and the street.  If you turn your head the other way, there's a curtain and the hallway continues to the bathroom.  You hear the noise of the "real" salon upstairs.  There's people talking, moving laughing.  My colorist sticks his iphone in a little dock.  A pathetic tinny sound comes out and that's it.  When he leaves to mix colour or while I sit to let the colour take, I'm on my own.  There's no way to reach anyone upstairs.  And there's no way to be part of the vibe.  They don't even have a way for me to pay in privacy.  There's no mobile card reader.

I'm heartbroken.  Disappointed.   And ANGRY!

I make my case to my colorist.  The situation is bad.  He asks the owner to come down.  I make my case to the owner.  None of this is illegal I reinforce, but it is nonetheless discriminatory, unfair, and wrong.  She points out that she has had ten people in the area since they opened and that people have been coming back.  I return that not everyone has the courage to speak up, that some people might choose to trade second class treatment to get their hair done.  She says that some people prefer privacy; I say that privacy should be a choice.  She says that they had no choice -- this was the only thing they could do to get accessibility and to be able to open (guess no one planned accessibility as anything other than an add-on).

We talk.  By the end, I think she gets what I am saying.  But there's not much anyone can do.  They rent the space; they don't have the rights to put in an elevator.  She says that she will think about how to make the space more of a par with the upstairs space in terms of decoration (did she honestly think that people with disabilities would be so grateful to get in the door that we'd be happy with the hallway?)  I'm going to keep talking to see what she comes up with -- and what I come up with when I am less angry.  I'm going to go back once to see what they've changed.  And if I'm still sitting alone in a hallway, I'm going to have to start looking for a new colorist.