By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 17, 2007

NEW DELHI

It's the start of India's monsoon season, and those muggy rains can give a person a really bad hair day.

So on a steamy Wednesday afternoon, in a country where big and long hair is a main symbol of beauty for both sexes, monsoon makeovers are the VIP treatment of the moment. It's the time of year when Indians suffering frizzy locks, sweaty scalps and unruly handlebar mustaches could use a hair mask, along with a massage or two or three.

At 2 p.m., at the Looks salon at Khan Market in South Delhi, the receptionist, otherwise known as "ambassador of scalp and hair," is minding the busy appointment book.

"It's not just about hair oil anymore in India," says Rachana Chadha, 34, whose shiny, red-hued dark hair has been monsoon-proofed with several of the salon's oil and smoothing treatments. "We have so many clients seeking fantastic hair healing."

The salon is painted bright white. If outside feels like a sauna -- in overdrive -- the inside has the kind of frosty air-conditioning that requires a sweater.

In the humidity-free salon, which resembles an ultramodern spaceship, it's easy to sign up for a "frizz-free" treatment. The idea, especially during monsoon season, is to specialize in attention to the scalp. Although it's rarely focused on in the West, scalp treatment is an essential part of the often elaborate Indian beauty regimen of massages and pampering, according to Chadha, who offers a menu of monsoon hair-protecting treatments.

At 2:15 p.m., the first customer is fluffy-haired Nitin Jain, 26. He's a bachelor, a wealthy rice and pulses trader who comes from the outskirts of the capital to do business and, during a break, pamper himself as temperatures outside soar over 100 degrees.

Many monsoon treatments target limp locks, frizzy mushroom hair, split ends and dandruff, which some hair ambassadors here blame on the intense moisture in the air during the muggy monsoons.

Jain was at the salon for the "calming ritual," or 90 minutes of hair masks, head massages and various shampoos and conditioners.

"My head gets much too sweaty in the monsoon season," he said as he stepped into a white hairdressing gown and glossy white leather slippers. "I love feeling that all the bacteria has been wiped away."

Then he's by the "hair pool," a giant white shampoo tub, getting his black hair carefully cleaned, as the stylist slides a wide comb through his mane and massages his temples and neck.

"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.