Hair Spa

In general, I am not given over to extravagance (I just finished reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and I'm afraid the phrasing has seeped into my vocabulary…). However, there is one indulgence that I thoroughly enjoy, and that the low cost here allows me to partake of on occasion: day spa treatments. Jeff and I had been hunting for a gym, and we visited one near our apartment called Addiction Fitness (Rs. 5,000 for 3 months, or roughly $36/month - which Jeff says is too expensive). I noticed that upstairs there was a "ladies only" salon, and made a mental note. So here I am, in the capital of India's poorest state, and I manage to find a day spa with prices way more affordable than the US (the entire experience I describe below cost about $15 total).

Several days later, I returned to get a leg wax (sorry to make the guys grimace. No, it's not painful). I was introduced to Anita, the esthetician who spoke no English. Lucky for me, another woman there did speak English and was extremely friendly, and persistent. Somehow I managed to agree to also getting a pedicure ("Your feet are so gross!") and a "hair spa" and haircut. Little did I know what I was agreeing to.

I assumed that a "hair spa" meant getting my hair washed before being cut. In reality, it meant that the male hair specialist (who informed me several times that he had trained for 9 weeks in the UK and was the closest thing to flamboyant that I'm likely to find in Patna) massaged my head for - I kid you not - 45 minutes with a blueish gloop that I was told was for "damaged scalp." Please note that I did not say that he massaged my scalp. In fact, I was treated to eyebrow, mouth, ear and eyeball massages, in addition to a shoulder/chest massage that came perilously close to groping. Have you never experienced an eyeball massage? It is quite a unique experience. Given the fact that he dimmed the lights before he began, and the fact that all the other employees stayed out of the room during the hair spa, I eventually just flat out told him that I had to leave, because I was not longer entirely certain what his intentions were.

But of course I hadn't gotten my hair cut yet, so he washed my hair and plunked me down in one of those salon chairs and proceeded to hack away at my (formerly) waist-length hair, with a great deal of flourishing and muttering to himself. I made the mistake of asking for "just a little bit of layering" so I now sport bangs. All that I could think afterward was that I was so grateful I got this done a year before my wedding, so my hair has some time to recover.

Apparently, my fascinated horror with the hair spa experience isn't daunting to everyone. A week later, one of my PIs (aka bosses) came into town to go on field visits with us. I told her about my experience at the salon, and rather than being repulsed, she suggested that we go back to get spa treatments (the first time around, they had tried to get me to do a "body spa" but I declined, saying I'd come back later - lord only knows what that man would do with a whole body as his canvas). A bit wiser for the experience, I opted for a (wonderful, cheap and brisk) massage by Anita, and then went grocery shopping for an hour while my PI got a hair spa. When I came back, she was deep in the throes of the head massage, with a look of mingled shock and resignation on her face (when he stepped out for a moment to resupply on blue goop, she whispered, "Did he massage your eyeballs, too?"). Despite the fact that she was my boss and so I should have protected her from the hair spa, I couldn't help feeling a little relief that the weird experience (dimmed lights, empty room, vigorous facial massage) was not uniquely created for me.