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Taking the Frizz and Frazzle Out of Monsoon Hair Days
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"Heaven," Jain coos, rising with wet tresses from the shampoo chair. Like many Looks clients, Jain loves the popular upscale chain because it offers a blend of time-tested ayurvedic Indian head massages and facials with Western products and techniques from Kerastase Paris, which is seen as highly fashionable, since the hair masks and shampoos are imported from France.
"Indians love their hair," said Yashin Priye Jhaamb, 24, Jain's stylist. "And with the economic boom, many in the upper classes want to treat themselves well, and nourish their scalps."
Nearby, women and men come in for a scalp analysis, a service that uses a camera and a laptop computer to inspect the health of the scalp and hair up close. Ginger tea is served, and chocolate-chip cookies are brought out on silver platters.
All around the city, at herbalist shops and beauty parlors, monsoon treatments include hair re-bonding or straightening, as well as facials using carrot extracts and peppermint moisturizers to combat humidity and dust. Cooling lime and salt scrub pedicures are the latest craze among middle- and upper-class Indian men who "love being pampered," Jhaamb said. Other services men have started getting in India including eyebrow shaping -- using thread to remove stray hairs-- and laser removal of back hair.
"But here we like to focus on the scalp, which gets too irritated, and the hair fiber needs to be moisturized more during the monsoons," Jhaamb explains at 2:30 p.m., as he begins a head massage at the center of the scalp. Jain slides into his chair as Jhaamb presses down with a kneading motion on the top of his head. Jhaamb then moves to the crown, the sides, the neck.
Jain calls out, " Ahh !" and says, "Fantastic."
Jhaamb then moves to the ears, which are pulled, but in a delightful way. Then it's the arms. Each one gets massaged slowly down from the sides of the shoulders and into the armpits, which also get kneaded. Then onto the hands and wrists in long sweeping strokes, bringing a smile to Jain's face.
By 3 p.m. he's back at the hair pool, getting the oils carefully massaged -- again -- out of his tresses.
Next up is a math and science teacher who looks at the glowing Jain and plops in the chair, monsoon frizz and all.
