Pet Hates at the Salon: Misadventures in Massages, Tinting and More

There is a certain percentage of my monthly wages that goes on trying to make myself look presentable. My spending vices are limited but I'll admit that trips to the salon are among them. Nails, eyebrows and having my hair did are all my favourites list.

But if I am spending my hard-earned cash, I want to leave feeling happy and not cursing my choice of salon/treatment, shaking my head and muttering the word 'mediocre' to myself as I amble home. So here are my top three pet hates from the salon:

• Marxist Misadventures

Eyebrows may frame the face but what do you do when the frame is hideous? Riddle me that? 

If I was to choose a Hollywood star on whom I would like to model myself, it would not be Groucho Marx. And yet I've lost count of the number of therapists who look at me and apparently say to themselves, do you know who Blondie there is the SPIT of? Groucho Marx, that's who. I'll just gives her the requisite eyebrows and she can move forward with her life, looking like she is wearing novelty eyebrows, she'll like that. 

I always point out the blonde hair on my head, the fact that my brows will take colour ridiculously quickly and the fact that I just want a medium brown shade. And yet the black caterpillars are still foisted upon me. Literally.  

• Massage 

Working at a computer all day, I walk out of the office looking like Quasimodo and I swear that I can hear actual bone-creaking. So when I go for a massage, I want to tackle some of those knots and try to get my shoulders back to some kind of regular angle.

So when I get a massage that is less massage and more of a kind of patting or lightly rubbing the shoulder blade, I wonder why I'm lying there and want to take my puffy little face out of the table and run home.

This is not a massage, this is a reassuring pat on the back. And you're grand, I don't need that, thanks. 

• Basin Decapitation

This one is fresh in my mind because my head is only half attached to my neck today. I went to get my hair blow dried on Saturday and as I lay back in the basin, I thought my noggin might actually come off and roll under the towel shelf. 

The angle at which my head was twisted was an angle only attainable by a head contortionist. Or the girl from the Exorcist. And I'm neither. Why don't all salons have those plastic neck rolls that can be clipped on to the basin and support your head? It's not quite relaxing when you're concentrating on not falling down the plughole.

But I suppose the weird angle of my shoulder would prevent the plughole slither so maybe all is not lost.

Do you have any other salon mishaps to add to the list? A friend of mine once left the waxers bleeding from her nether regions and begging for ice cubes so maybe I've gotten off quite lightly after all...