Worldwide, Hairdressers and Hotels
If you can afford it, for special occasions you can often find a hairdresser in or near a hotel. However, apart from the expense, you are likely to lose the effect as soon as you go swimming later that day or the next day. When I go to the hairdressers, I ask them for an easy to maintain cut and style and a demonstration of how I can wash and dry my hair quickly using a shower and hairdryer in a hotel on holiday.
When you go into a hairdresser's, anywhere in the world, they wash your hair in a wash basin. In countries with four seasons, when it is too cold to undress for a bath and show, using a wash basin to wash hair used to be the case and often still is.
This is what everybody did in the UK when I was growing up. If you were lucky, the shower attachment over the bath would stretch over the basin. When you are in hotels, in a hurry to wash your hair, when dressed, you can still wash your hair in a wash basin, but watch out for low central taps which hit the top of your head.
On one occasion, before a trip overseas to see a boyfriend, I cut off my long hair from breast length to shoulder length so it would dry quicker. My potential new man was not pleased. He said, "What I liked about you was your long hair. Now, you've cut it off."
Later, he phoned to say he was in a taxi or car, being dropped off at the hotel, so please be ready, dressed to go out. I jumped in the shower, washed my hair in the shower, got into an evening little black dress and was washed and ready when he arrived. He was impressed with my speed.
Swimming Pool Shower
On another occasion, I was on a travel press trip to Finland. We arrived at our hotel late, a quarter to 7 and dinner was at seven. I asked, "Can we try the sauna, before or after dinner?"
The answer was, "Sorry, the sauna closes at 7"
In my room, I opened my suitcase, took out my evening dress, and thought, I have just time to take a two minute shower and put on my dress and race to the dining room. What a pity there was no time to shower, go to the sauna (so I could experience it, photograph it and write about it), and run to the dining room.
I took off my travel clothes, saw the bathrobe behind the door, put it on in case somebody knocked on my door.
I thought, I must photograph the sauna, even if I don't have time to use it. I picked up my swimsuit and evening dress and took the lift down to the basement sauna. Nobody there. I dipped into the pool, washed off and washed my hair in the shower, dried off in the sauna with the towel, put on my dress, and run to the dining room, with my swimsuit in a gold tote bag. Several other people, inlcuding the VIP host, arrived after I did.
Somebody apologized to me for not having enough time for me and everybody to see the sauna.
I replied, ""That's okay. I have a picture, and I've tried it, so I can write about it."
Next morning, a fellow journalist said to me, "You were joking about having seen and used the sauna, weren't you?"
I was astonished that he had questioned my determination and veracity. I showed him my pictures of the sauna.
He was astonished, and impressed. Mission accomplished. I felt much cleaner with washed hair.
An American Woman's Hair Routine
In the USA on a travel press trip, a glamorous lady who edited a travel magazine had long, shining hair.
We enviously asked her, "How do you get such lovely hair?"
She replied, "I wash it every day - in the shower, when I have my morning shower."
UK Hair Washing Habits
That was back in the nineteen eighties when in the UK most people had baths, and washed their hair once a week, on a Friday night, ready for the weekend, in a wash basin.
Modern Hair Conditioner
If you don't condition your hair, you risk having fly away hair which increases in volume and tangles, irritating you.
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Singapore
Now, living in Singapore, humid Singapore, where you shower at least once a day, in the morning, and if you are at home, often morning, lunch time, evening, even four times a day, in a cold shower to cool off,
I often wash my hair in the shower. Having wet hair helps me stay cool at home at the desk or out on holiday In summer in the UK, Washington DC and the USA, beach holidays in Europe, out for the day driving around Cyprus, and Singapore all year.
In any case, since Covid, I have been swimming daily to help me with weight loss. I needed to lose weight. Covid strikes hardest at the elderly and overweight. I could not get any younger, but I could lose weight. So I swim in the condo swimming pool every morning. Wearing a swimming cap.
Swimming Pools - Swimcap rules
You are supposed to shower before entering the pool. To wash off any sun cream, as well as to be clean. And loose hair goes in the shower instead of clogging up the pool filters.
You are supposed to wear a swimming cap. I have read an article by an American woman outraged that a swimming pool overseas insisted that she wears a cap over her long hair, and if she does not, she buys one from them, at what she considered an inflated price.
Many people like to swim with their hair loose. This is banned at swimming pools. You are supposed to wear a swimming cap.
Why? Mainly for the health and cleanliness of the pool water. Dandruff? Head lice? Firstly grease, not from greasy hair, but hair oils used by men and hair sprays and conditioners used by women. Equally importantly, hair is sucked towards the filter.
Long Hair Accident
If there is a Jacuzzi, or you swim underwater or dive, it is for your own safety. In the UK, in north west London, where I live, a girl lay her head back in a Jacuzzi and end of her long hair was sucked into the pump inlet. The lifeguard who was on duty gave her mouth to mouth resuscitation under water, for several minutes. He had to keep doing this for several minutes, whilst the security guard ran to the nearby office to find a pair of scissors. She survived.
I read about this in the local paper. I wrote a reader's letter, saying, "The lifeguard should get a commendation in the newspaper's award at the end of the year to local heroes."
When I went to visit my local GP (UK wording for general practitioner, what Americans call personal physician), the doctor said to me, "I saw your letter to the local paper. I agree with you!"
So I shower before leaving home - I want to smell fresh. I might meet somebody in the lift.
I prefer to shower at home rather than in the shower beside the pool which sometimes has mould growing, or live or dead insects underfoot. Once the shower tray was already blocked by a long leaf fallen off from the nearby palm tree.
After the swim, you are supposed to rinse off to remove the chemicals from your swimsuit. Why? To remove the chemicals which keep the pool water clean. The pool attendants should be checking the quality of the water every morning before anybody starts swimming, and keeping a record, for health and safety. The chemicals eat into the swimsuit fabric and shorten its life.
An Indian's Long Black Hair
This year, In Swanwick, Derbyshire, England, at Writers' Summer School, I sat beside an Indian woman who had lovely waist length black hair. I asked her, "How long is your hair?"
She stood up to show me, smiling, "I often get asked!"
She was very proud of her hair.
I continued, "If you don't mind me asking, how often do you wash your hair - and how do you dry it?"
She replied, "I wash it every day. In the shower."
I asked, "In the morning?" I was wondering if you bothered to dry it with a dryer or let it dry hanging loose.
"No. Last thing at night."
"Ah. How do you dry it?"
"I don't bother drying it."
I gasped, open mouthed in astonishment, "But doesn't that make the pillow wet? You have wet hair on your face?"
She continued, "No. I make a long plait, from the top of my head. I push it up over the pillow and out of my way. It dries overnight."
There you have it. Now you know. One woman's solution.
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