Roho

Last night I went to the uber-cool, rock and roll hairdresser Roho in Palermo.  The fitout is impressive, and features a lot of fluro/neon colour.  It´s kind of 70´s in spirit and also feels like you are at a bar.  They have a dj booth so I guess sometimes it really almost is a bar, although for it to be a bar they would have to offer you a drink (I will get to that later).  All of the hairdressers are guys, not quite sure why as I think girls cut really well too... and they have a huge circular couch to hang out on while you are waiting for your turn.  Luckily the couch is comfy because I was waiting a while.

The thing that I just cannot come to terms with in Argentina, is that "cool" places and things that are expensive are ruined by bad service.  It costs 90AR pesos for a cut, no wash or blow dry, which is pretty pricey, but I have no problem paying this when the experience is enjoyable.  I had an appointment at 6.30, so when it was 7.05pm I asked the receptionist if it would be much longer, and she said "yeah, about 20 minutes because we had a lot of people come in without appointments".  And so why did I make the appointment if the people without them were able to be served anyway?  So almost an hour after my scheduled appointment I got started, and my hairdresser excused himself twice to attend to other matters, for between 5 and 10 minutes each time.  I actually really like the cut, it´s just what I was after, but something that should have been a nice experience left me with a cara de culo (let´s call it, an "angry face").

Here is a tip for hairdressing salons in Buenos Aires: If you want to charge a lot and be cool, be nice to your customers.  Offer them something to drink (why is this not standard?), apologise if there is a delay, and don´t leave your customer alone during the haircut, boludo!

 

These first four photos are from the Palermo salon, the shots below are from the Caballito one , which I may try next time to see if they are a little more with my ideals of making the customer enjoy their experience.  Here´s hoping.