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| Sahl Hasheesh from Entrance Piazza |
It’s been three months since I’d been to a hairdresser (the last one was during my UK trip in Nov/Dec), Lena was going to be visiting me soon for 18 days, so I wasn’t going to have the chance to go in the immediate future, so I decided I had to go ahead and get my hair cut now, before she arrived. It had to be done some day, after all.
I’d spotted a place advertising hairdressing services near the Entrance Plaza in Sahl Hasheesh, so I decided I may as well go there. It would be easier to go somewhere local rather than having to do a trip out to Hurghada.
The “hairdresser” / “beautician” parlour was a bit of a strange place that does a bit of everything – one seat for a fish spa, one seat for hairdressing, some touristy stuff for sale, some cosmetic items.
I’d already washed my hair that morning, so I was prepared to ask for just a cut, but as it turned out, I don’t think they had the facility for washing hair (but I may be wrong – there was an area behind a curtain where a washbasin may have been, but in any case, they never offered to wash my hair).
It was a lone guy in the shop and I couldn’t help wondering if it was normal in Egypt for men to cut women’s hair, since women often keep their hair hidden from sight. Anyway, he put a cloak on me and started spraying my hair with water. At this stage I thought I should probably volunteer the information as to what I wanted to have done.
He snipped away and hair fell onto the ground; I had no way of telling whether he was doing a good job or not, but he seemed confident enough. Near the end he suddenly yanked at something on my face and asked me a question I couldn’t understand. He yanked again and I initially thought that he’d found a stray “moustache” hair on my face and was asking to pull it out. I felt a bit embarrassed and gave him a panicked “no!”, thinking I would rather see to it myself.
Afterwards, I tried to find the stray hair and then, after relief that it didn’t exist, it dawned on me that he’d actually been offering me a mini facelift by lifting up my cheek from that area. I’m pretty sure that is it, because I now recall that he was pointing to the line from my nose down to the corner of my face as he pulled (at the time I was too alarmed by the yanking to really take it all in). However, I have no idea even now exactly what it was that he’d done to demonstrate this, as it felt as if he was pulling on a thread from my face, but I had no sensation of him attaching anything there. It was all quite strange! Heaven knows what would have happened if I’d have said “yes!”
But, to return to the haircut…. He snipped away and then it was all over. I guess my hair had dried already, so there was no hairdrying. Nor was there any hand-held mirror for you to see what had been done at the back of your head. When I realised that nothing else was going to happen, I got up and asked how much it was. He charged me 100 LE.
I argued for a while, saying that I’d seen the price of 70 LE on the door, but he didn’t budge on price and claimed that was the discounted amount. I couldn’t really be bothered wasting time with arguing and it was in any case a fifth of the price I would pay in the UK (although I would have got a wash and a dry!) and a tenth of the Swiss price. And at the end of the day, he needed to make a living, and it would be good if his shop could remain; business is tough with no tourists around these days.
No-one has seen me yet to comment on the haircut! From my point of view, I think it’s OK.
It was a lone guy in the shop and I couldn’t help wondering if it was normal in Egypt for men to cut women’s hair, since women often keep their hair hidden from sight. Anyway, he put a cloak on me and started spraying my hair with water. At this stage I thought I should probably volunteer the information as to what I wanted to have done.
He snipped away and hair fell onto the ground; I had no way of telling whether he was doing a good job or not, but he seemed confident enough. Near the end he suddenly yanked at something on my face and asked me a question I couldn’t understand. He yanked again and I initially thought that he’d found a stray “moustache” hair on my face and was asking to pull it out. I felt a bit embarrassed and gave him a panicked “no!”, thinking I would rather see to it myself.
Afterwards, I tried to find the stray hair and then, after relief that it didn’t exist, it dawned on me that he’d actually been offering me a mini facelift by lifting up my cheek from that area. I’m pretty sure that is it, because I now recall that he was pointing to the line from my nose down to the corner of my face as he pulled (at the time I was too alarmed by the yanking to really take it all in). However, I have no idea even now exactly what it was that he’d done to demonstrate this, as it felt as if he was pulling on a thread from my face, but I had no sensation of him attaching anything there. It was all quite strange! Heaven knows what would have happened if I’d have said “yes!”
But, to return to the haircut…. He snipped away and then it was all over. I guess my hair had dried already, so there was no hairdrying. Nor was there any hand-held mirror for you to see what had been done at the back of your head. When I realised that nothing else was going to happen, I got up and asked how much it was. He charged me 100 LE.
I argued for a while, saying that I’d seen the price of 70 LE on the door, but he didn’t budge on price and claimed that was the discounted amount. I couldn’t really be bothered wasting time with arguing and it was in any case a fifth of the price I would pay in the UK (although I would have got a wash and a dry!) and a tenth of the Swiss price. And at the end of the day, he needed to make a living, and it would be good if his shop could remain; business is tough with no tourists around these days.
No-one has seen me yet to comment on the haircut! From my point of view, I think it’s OK.
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