THE CUTTING EDGE

As I push open the white elongated bars and step inside, my world is transported into a monochromatic world filled with black and white tiles, checked across the floor. The sounds of scissors snipping and water rushing, bounce through the reflecting mirrors around the room. Each mirror reflects a different identity back at me. Some have bright red, green and yellow coils clinging to a set of locks, whilst a head covered in foiled squares lay stacked up on another.

In the small community of Grahamstown, on the fringe of High Street, lies the cutting-edge definition of style – Salon Gavroche. Specialising in beauty and hair, Gavroche, a French term for ‘street child’, has been standing for 30 years after current owner, Pete Delport took over the business in 1988. With a BA degree in languages as well as years of hair dressing experience under her belt, Delport decided to pursue her dream of opening her own business.

“When we bought the salon it was where Champs is now, behind the hotel. It was a more of a glass and wood theme there. Soon the hotel was taken over by new owners and they did not want to renew our lease since they wanted to extend the place. So we needed new premises. We searched Grahamstown until we stumbled upon this place. However, it was much more expensive in rental but…it was more visible.” – said Delport

This new premises was previously a clothing shop known as “Rag Town” which had closed down after the factory owner prepared herself for early retirement. The opportunity for a new type of fashion to emerge soon blossomed into what it is today.

Hairstylists have provided care services to both men and women for centuries and is in fact one of the oldest professions. There have even been mentions of professional hairdressers in the Bible and in Greek mythology. Over time hairdressers continued to work for the upper classes right up to the 20th century, at which time beauty salons opened to the masses and became a popular place for women to spend the day gossiping and being pampered.

Today almost all hairstylists are able to cut, colour, highlight, perm, and style hair. Soon men began to recognise the value of pampering hair. However, the reason why we do this on a day to day basis has a much deeper connotation then simply keeping up-to-date with the latest trends.

“I think people pay attention to their hair more often because you have you hair with you permanently, every day. People pay attention to clothes and shoes, but those are only worn once every couple of weeks compared to your hair that’s a daily thing.” – said Nicole Tay, 2011

We as humans are vain, self-indulgent creatures due to the fact that how your hair looks and frames your identity greatly impacts your overall appearance and how you feel about yourself internally. For example, adjusting features like your hair color, texture, length, and volume can change the appearance of your face to highlight other aspects like eye color, skin tone, size of your forehead, and even the appearance of your age. Therefore, the beauty of a face can be completely defined based on the appearance of your hair.

“The best service that I like to do in the salon is colour, to me that’s the most exciting even though I am not a very exciting when it comes to my own hair. I have not got time to maintain mine anymore but there is nothing better than somebody coming in and just wanting a different colour that you have never done before.” - claims Delport

Your hair is approximately 91 percent protein, and is made up of long chains of amino acids. These chains are found within the fibres of the cortex of the hair. This is why it is important to have regular maintenance. People often make the mistake of thinking that they need to wash their hair every day, but washing hair too often can actually dry hair out, or weigh it down with product.

Before shampoos were invented chemically, people typically used soap for personal care but soap had a distinct disadvantage of being irritating to the eyes and incompatible with water. In the early 1930s, the first synthetic detergent shampoo was introduced and due to a major breakthrough in the 1960s, this era brought us the detergent technology that we use today. The African and Middle East hair care market is the 6th largest in the world with new and improved products reaching our shelves almost every day.

“Internationally there is nothing better than RedKen. I have trained with Redken. I have seen how RedKen literally heals hair in your hands. Basically it’s a conditioning house more than anything else. I have really seen such good results with RedKen treatments and products that I don’t know if I would want to do hair without it.” - said Delport

Salon Gavroche is just one example of a room filled with expertise on the topic of beautification. This type of social construct has become a part of our daily routine, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. Finding reflective surfaces to gaze at our appearance or reaching for our phone cameras to fix any ‘imperfections’ have simply been blow-dried into our subconscious minds.

Overall hair and beauty has always been the centre of attention. What we do to ourselves changes how we see others and has a massive effect on our self-esteem. Even if we were forced to cut off all our hair, for most people, the immediate response would be a definite no due to the fact that the moment you experience this sense of loss or gain is the moment you become more self-aware of yourself.