C&C Cut

After two months, my formerly cute crop had turned into one righteous mullet. After catching a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window, I wandered the streets of London in a panic to find a hair salon with open walk-​in appointments.
I stopped by Basecuts in Soho, and the receptionist smiled at me happily, telling me a spot was open but that I would have to go to a cash machine since the salon only took cash. ‘That will be £40′, she said. I kept my cool. ‘Forty pounds, right? Okay, I’ll be right back’. I strolled out of the salon, and as soon as I was out of sight, I ran to the warm, cheap open arms of Chinatown.
Saddened, downtrodden, I wondered if my mullet would live to embarrass me for another day. But then I saw a sign for C&C Cuts on the first floor of the Chinatown ‘mall’ (if you will). £9 haircuts for men and £15 haircuts for women. I couldn’t go wrong, right? I rode the escalator up to the little booth where a not-​Asian woman (but foreign, nonetheless) greeted me with a smile.
When it was my turn, she asked what I wanted. ‘Get rid of the mullet’, I said. And she did just that. I told her I wanted to keep the length everywhere else, hoping that some day in the near future I might sport a non-​mullety bob, so she left it. She cropped up the back and gave me the smallest of trims everywhere else.
And she used a vacuum on my head to suck up all remaining bits of hair.
That’s right, a vacuum.
If that’s not worth four stars, then I don’t know what is.
It’s not the most chic haircut I’ve ever got. And it’s not completely free of flaws. The cutting procedure was nothing like what is listed on the website with its Japanese conveyor-​belt type of service and specially sterlised equipment (at least, I watched the combs being washed with soap and scalding water, and I don’t think that’s particularly special). But after all was said and done, the stylist gave me exactly what I asked for: she de-​mulleted me and left the rest of my hair virtually as it was. I can’t really argue with that.