Hairdressers in the Dordogne...What is the score Mint ?

[alittlebitfrench]

I had a quick look at the anglo idiot dordogne website and there is a thread about hairdressers. An OP asks....

"Can anyone recommend a good hairdresser that is to say, one who has kept up to date with modern haircutting techniques, but who doesnt charge outrageously?"

https://www.angloinfo.com/dordogne/discussions/health-fitness-beauty/hairdresser-8

Oooh la.

The responders to the thread recommend 'Paula Stephens' or 'Angela' in Loubes Bernac. Are these two French ?

So what is the problem in the Dordogne for a expats having their haircut.

P.S. Last time I was in the UK the women all looked like worzel gummage. Especially in Poundland.

Is that the look that expats moving to the Dordogne are looking for ?

I think womens haircuts in France are very chic !!!

So what is going on Mint ?

[mint]

Nothing going on chez Mint, ALBF.

I am in the course of changing my hairstyle, that is to say, having lost nearly all of my hair because of a medical intervention, I am now the proud owner of a very stylish wig plus several colourful foulards, turbans, hats and so on.

Never had a problem with hairdressers, not in the Charente Maritime nor in the Dordogne, in both of which places I have lived/am living.

Now I have to tread carefully because I might offend some on here.  Personally, I have never been a fussy hair person.  I used to get mine cut about every 10 weeks, wash it most days, blow it dry with a hair-dryer in the winter and......well, that's it!  Never had it permed or dyed (I think dyed hair looks ridiculous as it just makes the person seem desperate somehow).

If you do have dyed hair and you like how it looks, then it's entirely your affair and none of my business[:)]

[woolybanana]

Well, just to take the pressure of the Dogdogneites, I am happy to say that after 20 plus years in France I have found someone who cuts my hair as I want it - and it is not one of the dolly birds who used to do the job in the summers wearing nothing more than a smock, but a bloke; he has been cutting for many years and is still assisted by the very very old bloke who taught him, who works for the pleasure of it.

Just as I want, once every year, short as a tart's skirt so I look like a rurby player's apprentice...... brilliant.

Now, Nimt, about these wigs, could I borrow the mauve one from time to time, just to make my lovely Oiseau jump?

ALBF, go live there and experience it before sneering at it; I suspect you would be right at home!

[minnie]

I quite agree with you Mint. Whilst I used to dye my hair in my 20s and 30s it became far too costly to keep up with looking natural. Now in my 60s I'm growing old gracefully and am quite grey. However it looks bleached anyway in the summer and the blonde bits come through. OH and I go to a local (French) hairdresser who operates from the front room of her house. I think that we are her only British clients because we're always referred to as "les anglais" - despite me being Welsh and we too go about every 3 months...

[alittlebitfrench]

ALBF (middle forties) is going grey. I like grey. Grey is cool. I look suave !!!

Are we saying that the British moving to France don't like being grey ? Is that what this is all about ? Grey is not cool ?

Brits prefer to dye their hair 'blonde' and look older than they are ?

[woolybanana]

ALBF, what a load of old cobblers; no Brits are like other Brits, they are as individual as any others.

Do stop the muck throwing, there's a sad chap, a bit lost in life and culture, trying to find a role, neither Brit nor Froggie. Just detach yourself and forget yourself and your culture, become one of this cultureless, multicultural people that inhabit the rich and prosperous parts of Europe, like Monaco!! Be European if that is what you want.

[mint]

Monaco, Wools?

They used to say it's a sunny place for shady people[:)]

[Hoddy]

I go to a hairdresser in the local town. It costs more than I pay in the UK and is worth every centime.

I find the language, being a bit specialist, is difficult although I usually manage to explain what I want.

This Dordogne stuff is getting rather boring ALBF. It's about sixty miles from here to Eymet. I went there once.

[alittlebitfrench]

How was it then Hoddy ?

Everyone goes to Eymet just to have a sneaky look to see what its like. Chancer went uncover there once. He has not been the same since.

I would go but I fear that I might get trapped. I have this horrible image of glowing 'rovers' or gigantic balloons thwarting my escape. I will be consigned to a life of eating fish fingers, mushy pees and singing 'knees up mother brown' around a piano at the Eymet British legion social club. They will call me Number Six.

So yeah, I might give it a miss.

[lindal1000]

I'll help you dig a tunnel! In the river in Eymet there is a dip called 'le trou d'anglais' and it's where the English perished during one of the many battles that went on there during the 100 years war.

What you have to be careful of with some of the local French hairdressers is that they seem partial to tinting hair a rather bright shade of purple..'un peu de fantasie ' as one explained to me. We call it Castionnes purple.

I still colour my own hair..have done since I was 15. I have no idea what my natural colour is.

I've been to French and English hairdressers here. I now go to one opposite the supermarket in Bergerac which is part of a chain. No appointments, different staff every week and a bit hit and miss as to whether the hair is cut in a straight line.

[richard51]

OH has been cutting my hair since we met some years ago now! Must have saved a fortune.

For herself, she once went to a Dordogneshire hairdresser with a local French friend and was horrified at the cost. Has since tried to always have her hair done with regular hairdresser in England. She prefers to have a hairdresser who knows what she wants.

NB we are in quite a french bit of the Dordogne

[chessie]

Having one's hair cut can be very traumatic, especially if its below shoulder length.   Then I can understand a woman needing some words of comfort - and if not sufficiently fluent in French then it can be a problem.

I have my hair cut by an English hairdresser.   The one French hairstylist local to us is owned by two 'gays' who have been known to have arguments, to keep customers waiting for over an hour for a hair appointment - and then throw hissy fits if the customer tries to explain exactly what is wanted.   Great fun if you're not having your hair cut.

But there is another - very technical - aspect (apart from everyone having purple hair).   I understand the French hairdressers tend to pull one's longish hair up into a pony-tail - and then cut.   French hairstyles, if anyone really looked at the mags, are rather different to British hairstyles - and it's down to the techniques.   The British do the Vidal Sasson style of sharp cutting, the French do the 'quirky, avant gard' (odd) hairstyles, and if one is of more mature years - then it's the ubiquitous (sp - sorry but the word 'common' wasn't right !!) simple bob.  Have a look around;  how many 'bobs' do you see - and not everyone wants a flippin' bob.

Anyway, what's wrong with an English hair-stylist - just adding to the rich multi-cultural diversity of France after all, isn't it ?  

Chessie

[idun]

Bit out of touch with the board really, so have come to the last page on this.

Hair dressers, well I have had some disasters in France.

Started with me walking out when they had washed my hair and just left me, and my long hair was dry, naturally and I had had enough to just up and went, I spoke about 10 words of french then.

I then found a very chic hairdressers and one fine day, the hairdresser cut one side in one way and the other side in another, then had the audacity to say that she preferred the side that looked normal....... I did not go there again.

Hair dresser in my village could not club cut my shoulder length hair in a straight line, husband had to when I got home.

In a local city, had a couple of lovely cuts and then it all went wrong.

How could I ever have wondered about an english hairdresser, I had moved to France, and people were not doing that when we did. For better or worse, we had moved and got on with it.

Worry about the expressions, no internet, just look it up in a good dictionnary!!! what an idea to do that eh! And that is how I found what to say when my mother wanted her hair setting........... as I had never wanted or needed that doing.

Maybe english hairdressers are better, ( thus far I have had good haircuts since I have been back and did before I left)   I would never go looking for one in France that is for sure.

One thing I do remember one of my french hairdressers telling me that hairdressers that do house visits did not have to be fully qualified. Whether that still holds true, I have no idea.

[BritinBretagne]

[quote user="Hoddy"]

This Dordogne stuff is getting rather boring ALBF. It's about sixty miles from here to Eymet. I went there once.[/quote]

But it's what he does. He's a one trick pony who comes up with the same wind up time and time again. Just think about it, how can he possibly be an expert on every aspect of a large department, that at best he has briefly passed through, hundreds of km from his home? He is just a sort of snob who wants to impress that his, hardly unique, way of life is superior to every other British passport holder who has crossed the Channel. Like that stretch if water he is pretty shallow. Don't feed him.

[alittlebitfrench]

How did you know I went through once you little stalker you ? Actually I stayed over night in Domme. It was quite nice apart from the train.

To be fair OH was not impressed either with the Department. ON the other hand sister in law loves the place.

Somebody else started the Dordogne joke not me. I just joined in and made it up as I went along. Until I started forums 4 years agoI never really heard of the place.

To be fair those that used to be on the AE Dordogne site did not help matters. Some were seriously thick.

[Judith]

"French hairstyles, if anyone really looked at the mags, are rather

different to British hairstyles - and it's down to the techniques.   The

British do the Vidal Sasson style of sharp cutting, the French do the

'quirky, avant gard' (odd) hairstyles" ...

Thanks Chessie, that explains a lot.  I always knew that getting a little local French hairdresser to cut as I wanted was difficult ... I was never very happy with the result.  My hair has enough quirks such that a good cut, but simple, is what is needed, and finding a French hairdresser here was difficult.  I tried the visit your homes ones too, mainly the English, who had various degrees of success, then I was recommended a lovely Irish lass, who has made a small 2 person salon in one of her bedrooms (quite legit), and now I am pampered as well as receiving an excellent cut. 

I knew she'd be OK when I found she'd been trained by the same salon chain in the UK as I used to use, finally, in London [John Frieda], expensive but worth every penny.  Even in the UK, I'd gone around several places to find a good cutter before I landed there.  And it was 2 minutes walk from my flat in Central London.  Ideal.

And since she, like the English et al here, are all EU citizens, in this "United Europe" what's to say no to such diversity.

I tried colouring once, I hated it, now I happily live with my "natural highlights" which I must admit after the stress of this last year, are just a little more in evidence ... but, hey, that's me and not a cosmetically enhanced model!