LOOKING AND FEELING BETTER

The intimate stories told are the stuff of soap operas. Hairdressers probably know more secrets than all the psychiatrists put together, not only because there are more of them, but they offer a free listening service and the tip doesn’t have to reflect how much they had their ears bent.

When I lived abroad I had the same hairdresser for thirty years and for the last 25 of them we had become very good friends. He remembers more of my personal history than I do. The whereabouts of the members of my family and their particular pursuits never fall off his radar. He recalls conversations and details that I now listen to as if they concerned someone other than myself.

It is wonderful to have a live, walking, talking archive of my life. It’s almost as if the intimacy of running your fingers through someone’s hair year after ageing year, knowing better than that person what makes them look good, colluding in the deception of the hidden strands of grey or the permanent curl or the straighter locks, the weave or whatever else creates a special and binding relationship.

This may not appeal to everyone, but the escapism of the trip to the hairdresser must be irresistible – all those magazines waiting to be pawed with leisure. My eyes always light up at those titles that I wouldn’t normally see. I admit to being a great magazine lover. To work in the production of a good monthly or quarterly mag was once a professional ambition. As a reader, I love the magazine’s eclectic nature, the varying length of articles, array of writing styles and range of subject matter, the short stories, the hilarious classified ads, the magical pictures and all the gossip.

Last week I picked up a well-thumbed copy of the luxurious MACO magazine and discovered the whereabouts of a woman I met in London years ago and who, without knowing it, contributed a happy chapter to my life. She’s now in Cuba working as the Head of Design for the Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Office of the City Historian of Havana. I would never have found her.

When I was a busy executive, I used to take advantage of the monthly makeover to catch up on reading official work documents, especially since the wait could be near endless, but now I bury my frustration — 1.5 hours of it last week – by feasting my eyes on magazines pages. I am always amazed by what I learn. I would never have guessed, for instance, that in the USA between 2002 and 2004, the number of cosmetic procedures performed on African Americans grew by a staggering 30 percent to nearly 0.5 million. They were among the nine million Americans who had cosmetic surgery in 2004 and the fastest increase was among men.

In 2004 the industry for tucking, nipping, plumping, injecting, peeling and plucking was worth $8.4billion in the USA and is growing as television shows such as ABC’s Extreme Makeover makes this type of remedial medical procedure everyday. On a recent visit to Barbados I tuned into a cable station than only broadcast programmes about cosmetic surgery. Shopping for a friendly and good snipper or liposuctioner on the Internet has also given ordinary people access to surgeons and information on the new techniques that are supposed to be safer and, because they are less invasive, cheaper. This driving down of the cost has attracted more African-Americans to this method of self-improvement.

According to surgeon Dr Few at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital “there are ways to make changes that preserve ethnic identity, (and) people of colour are realising they can pursue plastic surgery and not feel ashamed”. Given that many people take their lead from the rich and famous, especially those in the entertainment industry, it’s no surprise that any girl might fancy herself as Patti La Belle, Tina Turner or Toni Braxton and follow their lead in reshaping herself. From the pictures I saw, Queen Latifah’s breast reduction certainly made for a better figure to go with her beautiful face.

Plastic surgery may be now “regular” for many people but there is a danger in some of them thinking that changing features brings happiness. A miserable woman I once knew had the ultimate hooked Roman nose which she finally cut down to size, but the cute Bardot-style sniffer she ended up with didn’t change her tetchy character one iota. She might have been better advised to go to the hairdresser’s more often and just disappear into the pages of the magazines.

It is not a bad way of escaping, and you look better after doing it too. And by the way, Happy Independence Day.