When you don’t speak the language and have only a passing understanding of key words and concepts, simple things like getting a haircut seem ten times harder than they should be. It’s not just getting the actual work done that’s difficult — it’s finding someone reputable who can work with your flimsy American hair and make it fabulous. That’s me, anyway.
Jan is satisfied if his hair is simply shorter at the end of the venture, but not crazy short. His last haircut, in a Victoria street shop, was effectively a military buzz cut. While he didn’t fuss about it too much, he did fuss, and Jan never fusses about his hair. I knew I had to find something a cut above (hahahahaha) the last experience.
Since Yelp isn’t a thing in South America, I turned to ex-pat forums on Facebook and elsewhere for recommendations. Then, I combed the recommended stylists’ websites to get a sense of services and prices. The one I settled on, Daniel Guidi Estilistas, claimed to have the services we wanted and stylists that spoke English, French, Japanese. I sent a query through their site, got a response in English about availability and prices, and slotted a boyfriend-girlfriend morning of salon fun.
These things never quite work out the way you expect them to, so I came prepared with key words and pictures of how I wanted things to turn out. Good thing, too, because our stylist spoke as much English as I do Spanish. We had a two minute consultation where I conveyed I wanted slightly darker color and the volume taken out of my poofing hair. Message received.
There wasn’t really a consultation as far as Jan’s hair was concerned. He pantomimed which direction his part should go and I threw in a sign about eyebrows, but the outcome was really in the hands of our stylist.
Our input was hardly needed. The Stylist Dude knew what he was doing and got us in and out with minimum fuss and only a little bit of awkward conversation about when we were going to Machu Picchu. I really did like what he did, and would recommend this particular guy if I had the fortitude to ask him more than three times what his name was. Two tries is my embarrassed limit.
Prices were completely fair, too — I paid about $50 less than I did in Victoria and Jan paid about $3 more. (That’s $75 for a women’s cut & color; $15 for a man’s cut.)
I’m glad we took the plunge and got styled. Now we can roam Lima without looking like ragamuffins.
UPDATE: We went back for a final trim before leaving the country. Our stylist’s name was Heiner.