or: The Challenges of Finding A Good Hairdresser

Before leaving HK in October 2019, I had my haircut.

It took me a while to find a great hairdresser there as when I arrived. Not many seemed to have cut curly-haired foreigners before which resulted in some interesting looking styles on my part. It grows and my search continued.

It was also very expensive compared to what I was use to. When I asked others where they had their cut, turns out they did it when they went back to their home country for a visit. Catch up with family and friends and have a haircut. I suspect they also stocked up on some of their favourite foods. That’s what I do whenever I go to another country!

Anyway, I finally found a great hairdresser in HK and then I moved. My initial great hairdresser was on the same island I lived, a ten minute downhill walk. When I moved to HK Island, that’s when I needed to find another hairdresser otherwise I was going to have a 30 minute ferry ride in either direction, a bus ride, plus my walk to the MTR Station and a 10 minute return train trip. Yes, I know that’s not a lot but for HK, it’s ridiculous. It’s a place where we have everything on our doorsteps so when that doesn’t happen, it’s time to change.

I didn’t always think this way. My first job was on another island to where I lived. It then moved. I spent 1.5 hours each way to work. As a previous Sydneysider, that was also nothing. Everyone in HK thought I was crazy. After a while, I realised I was crazy and that’s what helped me decide to move. Also because I like to have a bit of a change and living on HK Island was something I’d always wanted to try since arriving in HK.

Anyway, back to the hairdresser…

The best way to find a hairdresser is through a recommendation. This is how I found my next one – through one of my Book Club Buddies. Uber convenient, his salon was quite close to my work so we’d catch up after work and he would cut my hair however he felt like it at the time. And on occasions, would also highlight it in pink.

Compared to my first regular hairdresser, this one was way more chatty and very entertaining with all sorts of news as he cut my hair. He taught me quite a lot about show-business (since he’d been in various shows before returning to HK) and Samsung since he liked to update his phone and tablet fairly regularly. Sometimes he strayed to another provider, thought never Apple that I can remember!

When I moved to Tokyo, I was concerned about finding a hairdresser there. There was no-one in my office with similar hair to me so I couldn’t ask for recommendations. I hadn’t met that many people outside of work either so my options were few. I checked on FB Groups and still nothing.

And that’s when my legend HK hairdresser came for a visit to Tokyo!

He went to see friends and I was the lucky beneficiary of a haircut too. One of his friends was a hairdresser there so we used their salon and voila, my problem was solved for a little while.

When I returned to HK again, one of the first things I did was book in for a haircut with him.

After many years cutting my hair, and countless other peoples’ too, he returned to Canada.

Now to find another hairdresser.

I was chatting with a friend of mine who happened to live in the same building as me when she made a recommendation. This hairdresser uses natural haircare products and I had been moving down this path too. My friend has super straight hair though so it was going to be a risk. She assured me this hairdresser can cut curls.

She was right.

Chatting with this hairdresser at my first appointment and she tells me that she will be relocating back to England! Lucky for me that I managed to have two haircuts with her before that happened and one was my final one in HK.

And now here I am.

Normally I would wait at least six months between haircuts because I don’t tend to need it more often. That was the start of our lockdown so there was no chance for a haircut then. Coming out of lockdown, I wasn’t thinking about my hair and was more focused on building our business again.

Then I started to think about a haircut.

One of my friend’s daughters has curly hair so gave me a recommendation.

I never got around to seeing this hairdresser and then we were in another lockdown.

After this second lockdown, hairdressers were one of the earlier businesses to be allowed to open. I was told this hairdresser was going to be relocating shortly too. I needed to move quickly to make sure I had at least one (hopefully) decent haircut before she left.

I needn’t have worried.

Her relocation has been delayed.

It will be a little while before I start my search again.

Thanks to C.C for the title to this post. CC wrote the lyrics to this ballad that has been sung by a lot of Australians! It was first published in Bacchus Marsh Express (a Victorian regional newspaper) as “The Bare Belled Ewe” and signed C.C. Eynesbury, Nov. 20, 1891. Eynesbury was a rural property in this area so it’s assumed that C.C. wrote the song. The song itself became popular in the 1950s!

Researching this, I was on Wikipedia and found that the tune is an American Civil War song called “Ring the Bell, Watchman” by Henry Clay Work and the first verse is a parody.

That’s my something new learnt for today!