Fringe benefits: an ode to suburban hairdressers

Confidante, therapist, friend, lifeline… The local salon has long provided more than just a new ’do. One of my earliest memories is sitting on the bonnet of a Silver Cross pram, my baby brother asleep inside, while Mam pushed us to the local hairdresser to touch up her perm. I could, of course, be making this whole thing up, reconstructing this rose-tinted fantasy as a childhood memory of my own. I’m not even certain a Silver Cross ever graced our front door. And I’d have been too big a lump to be sitting upon its apron, as well as older in this memory than would have been possible. So, yes, making it up is highly probable.

But one thing I know is true is that around that time, I became obsessed with our local hairdressers. This tiny universe of transformation sandwiched between the newsagents and chemist of the local L-shaped shopping complex in the newly exploding suburb of Dublin 15. When my mother and father moved to Blanchardstown in 1978 from the central city, people thought they were mad – Is it even still Dublin? Don’t tell me it’s Meath? You’re out in the sticks – and out in the sticks it was. Dots of estates surrounded by fields, until eventually estate touched estate. Fields vanished. A brand spanking new concrete jungle in their place, with the curse of the 39 bus to connect us all. Dublin truly is a city of suburbs, growing out, not up, and as the city sprawled further during a period of rapid suburban expansion in the 1960s and 70s, creating new communities such as ours, small businesses followed. The independent hairdresser became as essential to these neighbourhoods as the local shop, the parish church or the post office and, by the mid-1970s, you’d be hard pushed to find a suburb without one.

I’m not quite sure where this local hairdressers obsession of mine stemmed from. Perhaps as a true child of the 80s, it’s the haunting of home bowl haircuts. Early photos betraying my mother’s handiwork as I gap-tooth grin in tones of sepia, hair lopsided and elfin short (less Mia Farrow’s Rosemary’s Baby, more Jim Carrey’s Dumb and Dumber). I begged to be allowed to grow my hair long, mad jealous of the flowing locks and waves, plaits and colourful fancy clips of my peers. Your hair’s too fine, I was told. Too wispy, they said, to even consider any sort of length. A bob was relented to eventually, but with my signature uneven fringe. Always a fringe.

My first proper haircut came when I was about seven, clutching my magazine-snipped mullet inspiration in my sweaty little palm. Handing it over as if it were the most precious of jewels. Sitting on top of a pile of fresh towels as my hair was styled to perfection. Fine sharp hairs stabbing my eyes, lining my mouth, then tongue, sticking firmly to the back of my neck. The best day of my life. Did it all go according to plan? Did it feck – sorry mullet fans, but there is a reason they should have stayed trapped in the 80s. I was slagged mercilessly in school and at home (ah, slagging, the Irish showing of affection). But did I care? Not in the slightest. To me I was Vidal Sassooning the shite out of my new fancy ’do.

And so began my love affair. Time and again I would return, spending hours under a heated hood, rollers pinned, curls for my confirmation, forever chasing ringlets – only to prove everyone right as they fell to their natural poker-straight form within two hours. Later, I was berated by my hairdresser for using expensive Nicky Clarke shampoo, which I had spent all my 13th birthday money on. (It was drying the crap out of my scalp, apparently too rich for my hair.).

I would be told outright when I was making a disastrous hair decision, whether I listened or not. There was trust here, in this tiny claustrophobic space full of hot-steam hairdryers, crimpers and nauseating chemical smells, full of chatter and gossip; it was never just about the hair for me. It was the stories. The laughter. The tears. The people. Long before I knew I wanted to be a writer, I knew I wanted to write about this place.

I’ve always been adventurous when it comes to my hair. That’s the rebel in me. And the affliction of my straight fine mane came into its own as I aged… Fast growing. Fast drying. Style holding well (except for any sort of curl, still to this day). I’ve had it dyed every colour under the sun. Chopped from long past my bum to sharp chin-length bobs. Pixie cuts. The Shag. The Rachel. The Lob. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sliding Doors splendidness. Side-parted. Middle-parted. And every type of fringe imaginable.

I served my time as a hair model, too, just for classes, mind, my orange-and-yellow-and-black Tony the Tiger striped balayage a particular highlight, it has to be said. I cheered openly when hairdressers opened after lockdown, the first one bashing down the door to rid me of my 28 washout (ha!) jet-black dye, and to fix my son’s mother-inflicted 90s step, bowl haircuts harder than they look. However, the role of the suburban hairdresser has always been about more than aesthetic transformation. When our elderly neighbour had a fall and ended up in hospital for her 90th birthday, it was our local hairdresser who called in to style her hair so it would look just right for her photos. Not a penny would be taken.