There’s something very therapeutic about a hair appointment. You can count the benefits on one hand.

Firstly, the staff are so polite. High service values are all around.

Surfaces sparkle, scent abounds, and clients are happy to be pampered. It’s wonderful to have the luxury of focussing on yourself, for once.

Music and lighting create a distinctive mood. The coffee’s delicious.

Secondly, you’re asked what you want. How often does that happen? In the busy Oxford street life outside – all too rarely.

Thirdly, the stylist’s single motivation for the time allotted to you is solely to make you look the best you possibly can – even if it’s difficult to ever replicate that level of pizzazz once you walk away.

Fourthly, you have an animated conversation about a subject that interests you. The stylist is skilled at soothing; they laugh on cue. They agree with you.They are both gossip and confessor.

Fifthly, they achieve a fabulous result, while soaping, massaging, combing through and cutting with little snips – every one of which takes you closer to Claudia Schiffer.

When you look in the mirror, the result creeps up on you by stealth. The drama of only revealed in stages: the combing, the hair dryer, the gorgeous-smelling potions, the spray, the wax – the flourish as the mirror is produced to reveal the back, let alone the front.

My stylist, Jess, was a people person. She loved them – all of them: children, adults, those with hair and those without.

After her hairdressing training, she’d worked in a bar. Then, in a courageous change of direction, in care homes for the demented, and those at the end of life.

“What would you do if you saw a worker abusing a patient?” she was asked at interview.

“I’d punch them in the face,’” she replied. Hired!

Hired again after a six-year gap in hairdressing, and you can see why. Only two weeks in an office challenged Jess’s indomitable spirit – contact with people was everything to her, and she’d never been out of work since leaving school and completing her NVQs.

What is it about a young woman like Jess which motivates her to ride on the X13 Abingdon to Oxford bus for an hour and 20 minutes each morning, while the A34 roadworks increase her journey four times its normal length, so she can be on time, and ready to greet her clients with a smile?

Another stylist found a song I liked on her iPod. She sang along a bit, and danced too.

Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she told me of her travel plans to the US, leaving this happy place of work with good grace all round.

Oh – and did I mention that I was a model on this occasion. For my trust, Jess gave me the best hair cut of my life – and not a penny changed hands, but respect all round.

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