shoestring gringa

The Black Dress, oil on canvas

What with the chronic scarcity of books here in casa shoestring, I spend lots of time reading on the internet.  One group of blogs I follow is by women who write about personal style, with a subset of women my age (let’s say older) writing about personal style.  They often discuss clothing, but also life in general, what used to be called in former times the art of living:  what this consists of, why so few people seem to either care about it or achieve it nowadays, cultural conflicts surrounding the pursuit of it, why Europeans seem to do it so much better, and what makes it so ironically, maddeningly elusive in the good old consumer-goods-saturated USA.

It’s been nice to find some like-minded souls out there interested in creating beauty in their lives, and I click through their blogs with interest every morning.   We have things in common, at least we seem to have read a lot of the same books.   Although that genre of books, on reflection, seems more focused on avoiding affronts to aesthetics than creating beauty… but I digress.   The books contain some helpful rules and principles, which we’ve all imbibed dutifully.

When it comes to the practical achievement of our shared ideals, however, I must part company with my cyber-sisters, what with living in Mexico and all.  For example, one dictum to be found in all the how-to books and a favorite among the faithful:  Edit your wardrobe ruthlessly.  If you have not worn it in the last year (or two), throw it out!

Oops, can’t do that!  Here in Mexico, we dare not get rid of anything, ever, from used mayonnaise jars to old tires.  These things — all things –  are not so easy to come by, and once their original purpose is done with, sooner or later they’ll surely come in useful for something else.  I think Mexico must be the recycling capital of the world.  Nothing ever gets wasted here.  I’ve always found this highly admirable; apart from the obvious virtue of avoiding waste,  the creativity which results appeals to the artist in me.

So, clothes.  I don’t get rid of them, unless they’re really in shreds, and then they get a decent funeral.  This doesn’t mean to say I use the entire stash at any given time; far from it.  What I do is, at each change of season, go through it all and pick out whatever looks interesting for the upcoming months.  Sometimes I might remodel a piece or dye it a different color.  Despite the fact I’ve had most of the stuff for years, there are always delightful surprises waiting, items whose existence I’ve totally forgotten (memory loss does have its uses).  Once sorted, the rest goes back into the footlocker with a couple of mothballs, to lie fallow for another year.  The clothes of the season currently ending are stored in a separate box.

Using these pieces as a foundation, I can fill in any gaps with a few new items, usually basics like worn-out t-shirts, or some accessory to pull things together.  My side of our tiny clothes rack and my clothes drawers remain organized and uncrowded, my mind uncluttered by extraneous stuff.  But reassured all the same by the knowledge it will be there the day I or someone else needs it, a day as easy to imagine as mañana here in Mexico.

I lived in Mexico for over a year before I got up the nerve — finally driven by desperation for a perm — to visit a Mexican beauty shop.  After a year in Yucatan, where only frizz-control shampoo seemed to be available, I was nervous that the chemicals they used would fry my baby-fine hair to a crisp.

When said desperation finally prevailed, we were living in a small town in Zacatecas.  I made some inquiries about chemicals and fine hair at a shop we found, and was assured by the lady that they had chemicals suitable for my hair type.  So I returned, and submitted to my first Mexican Permanent.  And damned if it wasn’t the best permanent I’d had in years!  Many many years, in fact.  Ever since salon perms stopped working in the states, along about the nineties I think — you’d fork over a hundred bucks and the thing would last a week if you were lucky.  I remember thinking it must have been the ever-pervasive fear of lawsuits up there that led to the use of such ineffective products, and went back to doing Lilt home perms myself, until they too disappeared.

But Mexico is perm heaven, ladies and gentlemen!  I just had one done here in our tiny village and once again, it’s a winner.

The beauty shop experience south of the border is infinitely more colorful and amusing than the gringo version.  (This will probably not apply to big-city salons; I’m describing small town to village level operations.)

If  you worry about things like cooties, you might be put off.  Going to the beauty shop in Mexico is a beauty experience, not a medical experience.  Not an autoclave in sight for sterilizing the equipment between each customer.  Nor do you see combs reposing in glass jars of chemicals like body parts in a laboratory.  (I remember fondly the little courtesy hairbrush and mirror at the photo studio where I had my passport pictures done, so customers could spiff up before the photo.)

And in the waste-not, want-not spirit of Mexico, they re-use end papers here!  Sometimes, anyway.  Whether or not the end papers are previously used, you will likely be requested to hand them to the operator as she rolls your perm.   You’ll need to straighten out the used ones as well.

The chair you sit in might or might not be a special-purpose salon model.  I have sat in those, but also in straight-backed kitchen chairs and upholstered office chairs.

Towels are used sparingly.   Instead they use this ingenious U-shaped basin which fits around the neck to catch drips and which works amazingly well.

The first place I visited had a regular beauty-shop sink and a spray hose attached to the faucet.  (One sink only, mind you, not one at every station.)  The most recent place has a beauty-shop sink too, but it’s not connected to any plumbing.  This sort of obstacle would stop most gringos cold, but it means less than nothing to a Mexican intent on doing business.   When the time came to rinse, the stylist crossed the patio to her kitchen and brought hot water back in a bucket.  A 5-gallon bucket inside the sink cabinet served as drainage.  I stood over the sink and she poured the water on my head with an old yogurt container.  ¡No problema!

Other attractions may be present.  The first place I went to was graced by the presence of the sylist’s beautiful 18-month-old daughter Celeste, who would play quietly amidst the salon chairs, hairstyle magazines, and nail polish bottles.  If you speak Spanish, you’re in luck:  the art of conversation is alive and well in Mexico, and a three-hour perm can go by like nothing.   Or bring an entourage, they won’t care.

Oh, and the price is right.  My perm yesterday came in at 250 pesos for my medium-length hair,  about  ~$18 US at the current exchange rate.  Don’t forget the propina!