On a visit to the beauty salon

As much as I love my long hair, the routine of washing it is more difficult than you’d imagine. So, yesterday, as on some days every now and then, I decided to visit the beauty salon for the simple purpose of getting my hair washed by someone other than me.

What followed is what happens each time, every time; I was rebuked for the dryness of my hair, for the natural oils secreted by my scalp, told that I was in desperate need of a hair spa, a hair treatment, and perhaps of every other kind of hair service that was on their menu.

Outside of the hair salon, my hair is the kind that often attracts the envy and admiration of many (pardon this instance of my immodesty); but even if that had not been the case, what justifies the commercialisation of these beauty services?

Why is every customer seen as a bundle of ‘flaws’? Curly hair in need of being straightened, long hair in need of being shortened, grey hair in need of being coloured… in so many colours that don’t even belong. Reminds me of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison's debut novel, and the heart wrenching tale of Pecola– the dark-skinned girl who desired blue eyes.

Here’s my question to anyone reading this post. What do you think we should do in situations like the one described above? What should we say to the salesperson who is but a cog in the industry that commercialses the manufacture and correction of our bodily shortcomings? What do you do?