My First Haircut in France!

Even though I lived in France for 10 months in 2004, I never had the guts to get a haircut during that period. This time around, I’m not as interested as the shaggy, natural look … so I made an appointment for a cut and highlights at a local salon. I’ve walked past it a few times and it looked fine, so I called and made an appointment. But during the 2 hours that I was there, I was definitely the only customer under the age of 45 … so I don’t think I choose the “hippest” place that I could have. But the results are good, so I guess it doesn’t matter! I honestly only said about 4 sentences in French while I was there – something along the lines of “I have frizzy, curly hair … I need a cut with layers … and maybe some bangs but not real bangs … and for the color, less blondish.” Well, props to the stylist for working off of that because I ended up with a pretty similar cut to what I got in the US before coming over here … which is what I was going for! Ah, another quick anecdote regarding the haircut. While eating lunch in the teachers’ café before my haircut, I wanted to ask if tipping stylists is customary here … so I was describing to a teacher that I had a haircut that afternoon. Well, I don’t pay much attention to details in French pronunciation … when writing I don’t make many mistakes in words that are very similar, but when I try to pronounce them, I’m not very good at making necessary distinctions. So the teacher understood that I said “chevaux” (=horses) instead of “cheveux” (=hair). I knew something was wrong when he started asking me if I was an equestrian at home … when all I had asked him is if I should leave a tip at my haircut appointment!