So what is a trip to the hairdresser’s like in France, I hear you say…..well, of course, firstly there is the obvious difference of being able to adequately describe what you’d like – and more importantly, don’t want…in French.
I find explaining to a hairdresser what I’m hoping for enough of a challenge in English, because what I’d really like is to leave the hairdresser looking about 20 years younger. (Oh, As I don’t have any hairdressing photos, I am shamelessly adding some lovely random photos of France !)

Luckily my coiffeuse knows me well enough now that visits are no longer an ordeal. In fact, I am coming to the conclusion that my trips to the hairdresser coincide less with a need to have a haircut, and more with the fact I would just really like a guilt-free rest in the middle of the afternoon. I just love reading the French chav-mags. They have all the same celebrity rubbish, and it’s all written in a bizarre franglais. Vast swathes of French are now English – but just said with a French accent. It’s très chic, you know.
Still, discussions commence regarding layers (dégradé – pronounced ‘day-grad-ay’); split

ends (fourche – literally ‘forks’); length (longueur – pronounced ‘long-eeeerrrrr’); volume (volume – pronounced ‘vol-ooooooom‘‘); and lightness (légèreté pronounced ‘lay-jair-tay’) – of weight – yes, some of us really do believe that our hair is heavy.
Please bear in mind that I love my adopted pays and anything I say is most definitely tongue-in-cheek, particularly if my lovely French neighbours are reading this 😉 However, one thing that I did wish to avoid at all costs was adopting the local hair colour of choice. This is not just a colour for ladies of a certain age, but is apparently age-indiscriminate. If you live in South West France you will almost certainly have come across this. Yes, it’s red. Not in red as a nice natural shade of auburn, but bright vivid red/orange (think Sharon Osbourne/Rihanna). Eek. Fortunately, my hairdresser understands my anxieties, and thus far, I am untouched by the red hair craze. There is time yet, though….I may still go native…