IN THE NAME OF BEAUT

IN THE NAME OF BEAUTY

With the fuzz on my legs growing apace, it was definitely time to find a place to remove the offending growth.  Consultation with Shaam revealed that she had an appointment for a manicure on Saturday and that I could go along with her as she also had her legs done at the same place.  This could prove to be an interesting experience, and it would certainly be novel as this was a salon where the traditional Arab method of hair-removal was used rather than the wax used in Europe.

Shaam collected me at half past ten, slightly later than arranged because she slept in.  As we approached the beauty salon in the Abou Roummanah district, she said, “Now, this may not be the most beautiful of places and they don’t have individual cubicles, but they are good. I hope you don’t mind it.  I’m used to it”.  Alarm bells ring. We made our way under a dilapidated blue awning and down some steps to a basement apartment where Shaam knocked on the door, which was opened to reveal a small room with a desk on the right and a stout lady in a black suit sitting opposite with both arms spread out in crucifixion pose and one manicurist working on each hand.  One foot was soaking in a basin of warm water and the pedicurist was working vigorously - and I mean vigorously! - with a pumice stone on the other.  

A partition on the left separates this section of the room from another where there is a treatment couch and the various implements required for facials, but nobody was working there.  Also to the left of the entrance is another door which leads on to another equally small room where “waxing” is done.  Preparations were not complete, so I had to sit and wait for a few minutes. Then Shaam, who produced her own manicure kit and nail polish, took up her place at the manicure table, on the left of the other lady and separated from her by a table.

I was soon invited to go into the other room.  Three tubular metal chairs with worn black imitation leather seats lined the wall with enough space between to put down a handbag.  In front of each seat was a low plastic garden stool of a shade of purple dearly beloved of the Syrians.  No couches.  I sat in the centre seat and waited to see what would happen next.  The girl who was to “do” me went over to a gas cooker just in front of the door and to the left of where I was sitting.  On the stove was a large aluminium pot.  The girl stirred the contents with a wooden spoon and then scooped up a dollop of brown toffee-coloured substance.  It was indeed none other than a kind of toffee.  The mixture used in Arab countries to remove body hair is a concoction made of sugar, lemon juice and water. Watching all this reminded me of the toffee Dad used to make for us when we were children.  However, the required consistency for the particular purposes of hair removal is different, so it was not necessary to wait for the mixture to solidify on contact with water.  Here, a more pliable consistency is needed.  The fistful of “toffee” was moulded into a ball and the girl approached my legs.  She proceeded to knead the ball and then, with great skill, spread it out to a width of about three fingers all the way down the lower leg. Then she lifted it up pulling the hairs out as she went.  Then she kneaded again and repeated the procedure.  From time to time she got up from her stool and rinsed the ball under the tap at a sink just behind her, washing away the hairs accumulated in the process.  As she worked, the the mixture grew lighter in colour, reminiscent of honeysuckle blossom.  

Another girl came in and sat on the chair on my left but not before stripping off her trousers and sweater and tossing them on to a shelf beside her.  Two girls went to work on her legs as she perused the results minutely, pointing out any stray hair which might have escaped their attention.  She also examined the quality of my hair in unashamed fashion which was quite disconcerting at first. The youngest girl working in the place, who may be the owner’s daughter, then sat down on the chair on my right with a tray on her knee.  She demolished a plate of onion and tomato salad and then peeled a lemon which she cut up into small pieces and dipped into sugar and cinnamon.  These morsels she fed to herself, with much puckering of the mouth, and to the girl who was doing my legs.  Then another client came in and occupied the chair on my right and the young girl set to on her.  This poor lady seemed not to have a very high pain threshold for she moaned and winced a great deal throughout the process, to which the girl paid not the slightest heed but worked on regardless.

Now most of my lower and upper legs had now been dealt with.  “Stand up”, said the girl. I did.  She tapped the seat of the chair.  What was I to do?  Place my foot on it and bend the leg so she could work on the back?  No.  Stand up here.  On the chair?, I asked in astonishment.  Yes.  The other people were smiling at my obvious confusion.  So, standing on the seat of the chair, with my skirts hitched up, the backs of my legs were duly dealt with in double quick time.

Now, sit down again. Roll up your sleeves.  The next portion was my arms.  In traditional Arab culture, women remove all body hair from the head down except their eyebrows and eye lashes.  However, I indicated that I would limit her intervention to my legs and arms.  Once both arms had been attended to, she then worked over my hands and then my feet removing every possible offending hair, even from the toes!

I must say that the sugar mixture is most effective, more effective than wax I think, but the process requires great skill on the part of the practitioner, who has to knead the mixture, spread it evenly with her hands, and then collect it up as she goes. The lemon in the mixture also serves as a kind of antiseptic eliminating the need for alcohol.

When she was satisfied with her work, the girl pointed to a small area a little larger than a shower cubicle with a shower attachment low down the wall.  Wash now.  I went inside and, over the girl’s back, asked the lady sitting on my right whether this is where she meant.  She smiled and nodded her head, so I closed the door and went ahead washing the areas which had been treated.  Treatment over.

Shaam’s French manicure was finished too and she was just waiting for the polish to dry, so I paid the bill which was extremely reasonable by European standards.  For less than half the cost of a lower leg wax, the whole body could be treated.

The next stop was unexpected, because I did not know that Shaam had a hairdresser’s appointment too.  We drove around a maze of streets before reaching a hairdressing salon belonging to the younger of two brothers both of whom are hairdressers.  As my hair was straggly and had lost the shape of the last cut I had before leaving Spain, I took the unexpected opportunity to have it cut while Shaam was having red streaks put in her own dark auburn hair. Apart from the owner, there were five employees in the salon, all but one boys. There was no shortage of clients, a steady stream arriving all the time we were there.  The hairdresser cut well and the result is pretty good.  

The most interesting thing from my point of view was watching the other people there.  Just as the souk is the haven of sparkle and glitter, hairdressing salons are the domain of lacquer and highly elaborate coiffures.  There is much preening and examining of every stage of the process though not such coquetterie as in Santa Cruz in Bolivia which, in my experience, must be the the most coquettish of all towns.  

As I sat in the beauty salon - that is really rather too grand a name for the establishment in question - I could not help but think of Christine, the lady who taught me aromatherapy.  “Now, girls, at all times the client’s privacy must be maintained.  As the client turns over, hold up the towel until she is comfortably settled in her place”.  I could also hear her reprimanding the young girls taking her beautician’s course who had to be immaculately turned out in their white uniforms and comply with a series of basic professional rules designed with the client’s privacy and comfort in mind. What would Christine have to say here?  I wonder...!

On the other hand, I can well imagine the hilarity once I had left at the gross ignorance of this foreigner who didn’t even know the ropes.  Imagine! She didn’t even take off her skirt - just hitched it up!!!!  Didn’t she know that beauty salons are a free zone, the domain of the female sisterhood?!

April 25th 1998