My Hair is in Your Hands

  The time to discover that you really wish you were more fluent in French is not when you're in a beauty salon. Exposed roots may be in style somewhere, but it's not here.  French women take the care of their hair just as seriously as they do their food.  Scratch that.  They are MUCH MORE serious about their hair.
  Hair styles and cuts here, from what I've observed are simple.  The Bob, (not like Dorothy Hamill's cut) in different forms, is still very popular.  In this hot and humid weather lately,  women with long hair have been putting it up in a nonchalant twist or a casual ponytail.  Gratefully I don't see them constantly playing with their long hair, tossing it around, or god forbid, running their fingers through it while at the grocery store.
  They're into simple here, simple makeup, simple hair styles.  Not for them is a morning routine of washing, drying and burning one's hair with a hot roller set.  (Which probably explains why when I was searching for a curling rod, I found just one in all of this part of Paris.)
  What they do not like is frizzy hair.  With the heat and the humidity this summer, the French woman wages war against the dreaded frizz.
  Moving to Paris was taking a chance.  Getting my hair done for the first time in a Paris hair salon was an act of bravery.  But "color" is easily understood, especially when your roots are as wide as the Champs d'Elysees.
  The salon I went to had a stylist who spoke some English and was fluent in pantomime.  She apologized about her lack of vocabulary.  I said I'd never be able to speak French as well as she already spoke English, but my pantomime was very good too.  Mireille told me nowadays, people must learn English if they want to get ahead.
  I was helped into my fashionable disposable gown and offered the beverage of my choice.  Color, wash, condition, wash, Keratin magic applied, iron, wash...I lost track of the steps and the procedure.  My head has never been treated with such tenderness-my scalp was massaged to the state where I was really just putty in Mireille's hands.  
  I've had my hair ironed straight before, but not to the point where it changed the color and smelled like shrimp tempura.  Other clients at the salon were obviously interested in what was being done to my hair, while surreptitiously looking for the fire exits.  Medusa herself never caused such concern.
 Four hours later, (almost as long as a French dinner) the roots had been dispelled and I had a color that can be described as delicious.  My hair resembled a Dior mink coat-sleek, shiny and soft.  And almost as expensive.
  But it was the first time a Parisian hair stylist has done my hair. And I was pampered by the entire staff, cosseted by the salon owner, and smiled at by the other clients.
  To a round of "oh la la's", I paid my bill (my own "oh la la" moment) and Mirielle handed me her business card.  As I was leaving, she smiled at me, and in perfect English said, "Thank you for trusting me."