along with my iron tablets, services for beauty (nails, hair, color, waxing), relaxation (massage), exercise (yoga) are much more inexpensive here than in the States.
call it machismo, but i'm glad all these ladies here have no excuse not to be beautiful...
service....................chile...........................USA
brazilian wax................$7.00 USD.........................$65.00 USD
full leg wax...................$10.00 USD........................$70.00 USD
pedicure........................$15.00 USD........................$40.00 USD
hair cut (no color)........$14.00 USD........................$40.00 USD
and at first i was scared to have my hair cut here, just like latin women i know are scared to have their hair cut by just anyone in the States. the thing is that fashion for the most part is just so traditional. practically no one has short hair and the majority smell so fragrantly and wear more make-up and lipstick than i would ever dream of... i wasn't sure i'd have a hair dresser on my level. but man, she did a great job for me being gringa with short hair!
you can't get your legs waxed without a healthy dose of man-ness...
so i'm getting my legs waxed (oh joy, weeks and weeks without shaving) when the lady says to me something about how i've obviously been needing this for a while. almost, why did you wait so long? then she says, it'll be a gift for your boyfriend (with a big smile on her face).
do you get angry? or do you just accept cultural differences? these are the questions i ask myself on a more frequent basis here in chile.
on another note, it's impressive to see the degree of conservation here. the lady at the hair salon was washing and drying the foils used in hair coloring so she could re-use them. unbelievable! and this was the thing, it was foil from real tin foil rolls! in the US they have special rolls that come off like tissues and they throw them away like used tissues just the same.
people, not even like homeless people, will dig and dig in huge piles of trash to find cans, scrap metal. metals are just expensive enough here to conserve them the way we should conserve all of the stuff we just blow through in the states.
chileans can't help but plasticize everything, though. if only plastic came with a tax that reflects the way it harms the environment. the other day at the market, a guy insisted i take his new plastic bag because it would look nicer than the "ugly", reused plastic bag i had. yes, that's right though, what chileans save in tin, glass, wood, paper, aluminum and ceramic they make up for in plastic. plastic bags? look nice?? ugh...
1 comment:
Man, this may be tmi as well, but I haven't shaved my legs since January 2006, when I got to Spain, and found out it was about 10 usd to get it done there, and kept doing it on my own in the States... although I've neve gone to a place to have it done in the US, because the prices are just ridiculous. I'm happy to be back in a country where it's cheap again!
I'm sort of excited to get my hair cut here (it's getting to the point where it will be needed soon...) because whoever cuts it will be used to ridiculously think, wavy, dark hair! I've never gotten it cut in the US and not had the person who cut it confess that they don't really know how to deal with hair as thick as mine!
Totally with you on the plastic thing, although I tend to carry little cloth bags and/or my backpack everywhere, so I'm getting used to the weird looks when I ask for no bag...
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