Turkish Haircut

I had a little time to fill so I decided to clean up a little. I'd skipped shaving long enough that using a disposable razor was simply not feasible... So I figured I would pop into a barber for a quick shave and haircut.

The barber spoke only slightly more English than I do Turkish, which is to say that after overlap we had about 7 words total between us and he had a razor. What could go wrong?

We started off with steaming water and fragrant soap, applied more than liberally with a nice brush. Then applied a second time, until I had a solid inch of foam all over the lower half of my face. He was thorough. Then he carefully straight-razored away the 2 weeks of beard I've been sporting. Reapplying soap with frequency.

Soap, it seems, is key to the process. Which is fine because it feels good to have my fave lathered.

Once he got through with the shave he hot waxed my cheekbones and ears. After a few moments of talking his cellphone, he came back and added some globs of wax to my nostrils and nose, too. This was a first for me.

As the wax cooled, I was served some apple tea. A nice touch, but hard to enjoy with my sniffer stuffed with wax - an experience I was about to discover gets significantly less pleasant with the undoing. Ouch!

He followed up with a quick rubdown with some sorta toner, and then applied a nice layer of mud mask.

With my face fully defuzzed and painted dark gray with mud, he got to work on my hair and without much communication I feel like we did a good job. I saw later that he missed one little spot but I think I can fix that myself if I can find some scissors.

The cut was pretty standard except that he used the straight razor as a final step, with the comb. Not sure what that does but... Ok.

As the cut ended and the mask dried, he had me lean frontward into the sink and washed both my face and hair very thoroughly, with a lot of soap. A LOT of soap. It gets a little tricky to breath while facing down with a constant spray of soapy water cascading downward over one's nose and mouth. But I *love* having my hair washed and enjoyed every moment of it.

I thought I was nearly done but... Not even close. We took a tea break, then the assistant went to work on my shoulders with an electric massage machine and the barber proceeded to tone, oil, wipe, tone and... Something else my face. I lost count of the steps and products but it smelled great and each application was like a mini facial massage, while the 14yr old assistant went to work on my legs.

Once my face and hair were done, both the barber and the boy went to work in earnest. My limbs were stretched and twisted, my neck cracked, my chest stretch and my spine adjusted. I was bent forward again so that they could get to my back and it turned out to be a pretty good massage. Unexpected and a tremendous experience.

There were tea breaks now and then, but I barely remember when.

What I thought was a "quick" visit to the barber turned out to be nearly 90 minutes. I emerged refreshed and relaxed and about $20 lighter. I wish my hair grew even faster- I'd do this every week!Read more