On Pampering

From personal experience, there are a few basic things that I need to ensure before deciding to move to a new place, notably: can it offer safe and sufficient services for the removal of the hair on my head and the hair on my legs? After a few short strolls around Hong Kong, I was confident I’d moved to a city that could cope with my beauty requirements; there were treatment centres and salons everywhere! Giant fluorescent feet hung in the streets, declaring discount foot rubs and pressure point massages; my toes tingled at the tiny prices written on the posters of the numerous nail painting parlours; even the most rundown buildings had flashing signs encouraging you to make your way to the 11^th floor for a full body oil massage. Yes, this looked like a city that knew how to keep its people looking prim and purty.

My first venture to a hair salon went reasonably well considering that most HK hairdressers are trained to deal with straight, smooth, sleeky hair, while mine is wavy, frizzy and bouncy. For the two hours I was there, my stylist and I communicated using only hand signals, and every 15 minutes her assistant inexplicably pulled me away to the sink for another rinse, massage and general scalp rubbing session. Hong Kong made for a challenging place to find a cheap leg wax too because, as I soon realised, the average HK woman- and man for that matter - has less hair on their legs than I have on my hands, so waxing is not in dire demand. In my first weeks, I found a small Chinese salon which accepted my half leg wax request, but as my rather rough handed beautician was mid way through, she started shouting and pointing: “Like a man! Like a man!” This was all rather unnerving until I realised she was pointing at my forearms, which clearly had more hair on them than any lady she had ever encountered before. She screeched the same phrase at me repeatedly until I finally gave in and allowed her to remove the offensive hair from my limbs.

Fortunately, these initially off putting experiences have not held me back from exploring more of the beauty treatments on offer in pamper happy Honkers. The first time I stepped inside what was to become my go-to massage place, the word seedy was certainly among those that sprung to mind: the very dimply lit space, the heavy red velvet curtains and the even heavier scent of citrusy sweet oil hanging in the air, all made for an interesting first impression. But I was soon made to feel warm, if not welcome, by the masseuse who stood on my back and proceeded to walk up and down it, laughing in response each crack from my crying bones. Shortly after that she insisted on trying to untie my neck knots, at which point I tensed up and had an internal panic attack about the fact that I’d knowingly allowed one of my most fragile body parts to be frisked by a small Thai lady. Why didn’t ask to see her ‘I’m qualified to do this’ badge before lying down? As I started wondering how likely it was she could break my neck, everything in my body resisted her rhythmic movements, whereupon she applied more pressure, and I resisted more. This went on for the remaining 45 minutes until one of us, exhaustedly, gave in.

A similar Catch 22 clause applies to wearing summery footwear in HK. It’s hot, so I want to wear feet freeing shoes to let my feet breathe, but the more I do so, the more my feet are open to the elements and the worse they look. Thank the Lord for the Shanghai Pedicure! This treatment is designed to remove dead skin from underfoot, and when I say ‘remove’, I suppose the accurate terms are ‘shave’ and ‘scrape’.  The idea is that you sit there for however long you have deemed necessary and watch a razor wielding man or woman remould your blocks of hard dry skin into human looking feet once again. The first time I did this, I innocently asked the man for a 30 minute session. On reflection, that was very wishful thinking. He genuinely worked away on my feet for 50 minutes nonstop only looking up to mop his brow and even apologise for the delay, pointing and the lapful of foot scrapings he had removed as his defence for running over time. I looked back, completely cringed out, but still willing him on, encouragingly.         

After the Shanghai Pedicure, eyebrow threading is my latest HK beauty experiment. For those who don’t know, threading is a swift and nifty, but not entirely painless, hair removal technique for the face and neck area. It uses a simple thread and scissors technique- often with a little help from the beautician’s teeth. And it works! Obviously, there is a red, raw rash for a few hours, but then things settle down and look pretty good. So far, the only awkward stage has the post- eyebrow -threading -conversation when the beautician scrupulously examines the rest of my face and asks if she can thread my forehead or my cheeks or my upper lip. Each time, I look back at her, as cluelessly as I can, as if to say: ‘Obviously I don’t have any excess hair in any of those places. You must be confusing me with someone else’. But she knows, and I know, that there is still work to be done. Next time, maybe...