Of Haircuts and Bang-he

There’s no doubt about it. I was going to have my hair cut before the week ended.

It is somewhat monumental, the most previous haircut I got which was last year where very little was left of my locks. My sister and I had our hairs cut right after having our brother cremated. I wanted to get rid of my hair totally but I figured that won’t do me any good so I settled for the very short do.

It’s been almost 11 months since I last visited a beauty parlor. My hair has been screaming for some pampering for that long.

I literally felt the need for some trimming. It may not have been too obvious but my hair has actually grown. I had been having a hard time managing it. The most obvious solution I could think of was to get rid of a few inches, maybe four or five.

I have this argument that, since I seldom spend for my hair, I might as well go all out with it. Well, not really all out, but I wasn’t planning to go cheap.

And so I headed to the David’s Salon branch nearest our home. I just I had to walk 5-7 minutes and I was there. My sister and I fondly refer to it as “Torre ni David” to allude to a certain part of the litany old people recite after praying the rosary and to describe how one would have to take two steep flights of stairs to get inside the salon proper.

I think it was during the weekend when I was able to watch some parts of an interview with the real David of David’s Salon. (I once called him their mascot.) He’s from England, I think. And just like our very own Ricky Reyes, he also started sweeping the floor of a salon, his uncle’s salon. That’s how and where he received the scissors’ calling.

The branch nearest our home isn’t the most impressive David’s Salon branch but I opted to go there anyway because of the head and back massage they render their costumers who are up for haircuts. I’ve been to other David’s Salon Branches and I didn’t get any free massage.

Also, the staff in “Torre ni David” are not irritatingly friendly. They know how to respect their customer’s peace without being snobbish.

I waited for the stylist to attend to my hair not knowing what look I was aiming for. I decided to grab some of their magazines (they’re really old—dating back to 2005) and browse for a possible cut. Quite amazingly, my finger pointed to…dandan-dan-dan...Nicole Richie!

Photo by Lisa O Connor/ZUMA Press. (�) Copyright 2005 by Lisa O Connor
Photo taken from: www.beautyriot.com/article.php?id=3302&c_id=54

It’s the bob cut—well, it was supposed to be a bit longer than the usual bob—with, hold on to your butts, bangs!

I think the stylist got too carried away and cut more than she should. My hair is way shorter than what you see Nicole is sporting in the picture above.

The stylist almost forgot the bangs. I had to remind her about it. But I specifically instructed her to keep my bangs long. I wouldn’t want to wrestle with super short bangs on a daily basis. And that’s what she did.

Now I have to commit to the bangs. As of the moment, I have them pinned in place: away from my face.

Back in college, in the midst of brainstorming for a project where we were asked to come up with an advertisement for a certain beauty product, my friend hastily jotted down how we envisioned our model. In her paper, she wrote what-we-deciphered-as, “bang-he.” We could hardly tell what in the world bang-he was. We wondered if it even was an English word. Later we realized, after much pondering, that the bang-he she wrote actually was “bangle.”

But now we use “bang-he” as an interjection. A meaningless expression. A vent for exasperation. Sometimes, a curse.

And so here goes, bang-he!