Hair Adventures Abroad: Trusting Google and a Sombrero

The real bravery in becoming a full-time traveler is not giving up your home and everything you own. It’s being in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and need a hair color touchup and haircut and trusting that you won’t need to wear a baseball cap for the foreseeable future.

I enlist my friend, Google, to find a nearby salon that is highly rated to hedge my bets. It’s often tricky enough to schedule the appointment. Fortunately, that is one area that goes smoothly today thanks to an online reservation process. I arm myself with the hair color formula from my previous colorist, and trudge off to the shop—my first solo trip in Italy. Kevin and I have been glued together for the last several weeks, and he’s typically the navigator. Fortunately, Maps gets me right where I need to be.

Neither the person cutting my hair nor the colorist speaks much English, so I’m even more grateful to have the color formula with me. The color goes fairly according to plan. The online process requires prepayment, but the stylist has suggested an additional treatment. I think it’s to help balance the colors and also a conditioner, but I’m not sure. I give the go ahead and realize I never asked the price. I’m crossing my fingers that I didn’t commit myself to another 100 euros or more for this extra service.

I’ll deal with that later. Now I’m in the hair cutting chair and the stylist’s assistant puts this sombrero contraption on top of my head, so I have bigger things to worry about than the bill. Never in the 58 years I’ve been on the planet have I seen anything remotely similar to the process I’m about to undergo. All of my hair is piled on top of the sombrero and is raked across it so that the extra length of my hair forms a type of fringe to the hat. And then the stylist begins cutting. And cutting. I request a two-inch trim, but he suggests five inches. I choose to look on the bright side and trust the ratings on this shop and his demeanor, which appears to indicate that he may be the owner and knows what he’s doing.

Gratefully, the sombrero comes off, the hairdresser adds finishing touches to the cut, the blowout is a breeze, and my grays are perfectly washed away, at least for another month. The payment process is confusing in part thanks to language challenges, but at the end of it all, I get a discount and don’t need to pay for the extra service. Definitely an unconventional process, but I’d call this a great success!