Barber Shop Horror Story

[Piscium]

‘See this scar on the back of my head?’

‘Uh huh’

‘I’d like you to keep this covered when you cut my hair please’

‘Uh huh’

‘It absolutely can’t be exposed’

‘Ok’

‘You’ll need to leave the hair longer at the back, blend it in’

‘Yup’

I have a bad feeling about this.

Last week, I was forced to try a new barber. My regular barber has disappeared, shut up shop, probably gone back to Kosovo (he’s been talking about it for years). And so on a quiet afternoon on a day off work, I decided to try the barber shop on my local high street: two young metrosexual guys with stripes shaved into their heads (I have one of those!) and monosyllabic conversation. This is not like my usual barbers: yesterday’s Daily Mirror, permanently up Christmas greetings poster, Formica counter tops.

‘Where’d ya get the mark?’

‘It’s from a hair transplant’

‘Oh’

‘How’s it looking back there?’

‘Ok’

I know it’s not Ok, because I can feel him combing the hair too hard, which means he’s trying to cover something up.

The moment of truth comes, the dreaded back-of-head mirror view.

Huh, not too bad.

Back at home my wife greets me nervously and asks how it went. She remembers the last time I tried a new barber which ended in disaster and sent me into a depression that lasted throughout Christmas.

‘Not bad, not as bad as last time’

But in our bathroom there are three mirrored cabinets on various walls, each with a door that can be opened and angled in a way which affords me full view of the back of my head. And when I check …

Sh*t.

Sh*t!

A long, wide, whitish chasm in the back of my brown hair is clearly visible. My heart sank.

I tried sprinkling Nanogen Nanofibres into the canyon but it didn't stick and I just ended up with dusty shoulders.

I Googled ‘hide hair transplant scar’ (which is, incidentally, how I came across this forum) and found a site call HIS Hair Clinics, scalp pigmentation. Quite ingenious, never heard of it, but I’m not about to have my head tattooed!

Then, I had a flash of inspiration. I’m sure I read somewhere that Nanogen do a concealer. So I checked on their website and found a product called Aqua Match, a kind of thick, waterproof make-up pencil in the Nanogen colours designed to blend hair and scalp together, conceal thinning hair and – bingo – cover scars.

Better yet, my local Boots stocks Nanogen products. I rushed there on the Saturday afternoon praying that they would have it in stock. I had a friend’s 40th birthday BBQ that night, and an outdoor concert the next day. I couldn’t even just hide away at home.

Double bingo! There it was, just sitting there on the shelf: light brown Aqua Match. My heart bounced.

Back home in my bathroom, I took pencil to head and blended, covered and concealed. Slowly, the scar magically disappeared, even under the bright spotlights of my bathroom.

Today, a week after the haircut, the scar is still visible (it will take a few weeks for the hair to grow out) but at least now I have a new weapon against moronic, infuriating, useless barbers!

Alternatively, I could move to Kosovo!