The Hairdresser’s Confessional

There’s a peculiar intimacy in letting a stranger wash your hair.
Not just wash, but cradle, massage, linger. Fingers slipping through shampoo, knuckles grazing temples. And you, sitting there like a docile saint, eyes closed, neck balanced on a porcelain groove that feels one notch removed from a guillotine.

Nowhere else in life do I let someone stroke my scalp and ask about summer holidays in the same breath. It’s a ritual so absurd it almost feels spiritual. They lean in close, scissors snipping like tiny weapons by your ear, and you find yourself telling them about your job, your breakup, your plans for Christmas. Why? You wouldn’t confess this much to a priest.

Maybe it’s the mirror. You both stare at the same reflection, side by side, like accomplices. Or maybe it’s the cape, that plastic shroud that robs you of arms and dignity—what else can you do but talk?

And the questions are always the same. Going anywhere nice this year? Busy at work? How’s the weather? (As though the entire salon might crumble if the silence held.)

But here’s the thing: I walk out lighter. Not just of hair, but of words I didn’t know I needed to say. As though thirty minutes of small talk with someone wielding a razor is, somehow, therapy.

And then, of course, they try to sell me mousse.