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Hairdressers reveal their customers' darkest secrets and cutting remarks

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salon
 Women in the salon conversing Photo: Courtesy

If you need a haircut but are dreading the small-talk, then a Cardiff salon may be a cut above the rest.

Scott Miller at Bauhaus salon has introduced a “quiet chair” to provide customers with a no-chat option for those who don’t want to be asked about their next holiday or Christmas plans when they nip in for a quick trim or a blow-dry.

But for some customers, it wouldn’t be a trip to the hairdressers without a full-on gossip and catch-up while they get their roots done.

And stylists say they often get to know more about their clients’ love lives and medical problems than even their friends and family.

So everywhere else, what are the hottest topics at the hairdresser? Here stylists share their often very saucy salon secrets...

A woman told me her husband was a spy

Tony Bennett , who runs a salon in Longton, Preston, says: “I had one client who told me her husband was a spy and another who told me all her gynecological problems.

“There was one lady who had loads of chickens and she kept dumping them at people’s houses as she hated them. She also told me she was a swinger and while her husband was away she moved all his stuff into a rented house. When he came home she had changed the locks, so he knocked on and she handed him the keys to his new house.”

Swinging seems to be quite big in Cheshire

Cheshire-based celebrity hairdresser Alex Foden - the man who created Amy Winehouse’s famous beehive, says: “You have to be careful what you say to clients - particularly when you are blow-drying their hair.

When I was about 19 I was drying a lady’s hair and I couldn’t really hear what she was saying over the hairdryer, so I just said, ‘oh that sounds nice.’ She just burst into tears. So I turned the dryer off and asked her what I had said to upset her and she had just told me that it was her husband’s funeral tomorrow.

“And swinging seems to be quite big in Cheshire - I have had people tell me all about people I know going to swingers’ clubs and sex parties. I always try to be discreet though.”

I'm thinking of having an affair, what do you think?

Rachel Gough , assistant manager of True Ambition Hair and Beauty Salon in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, says: “I had one client due to get married and she told me she was having an affair . I’d get updates every time I saw her. Sometimes she’d come in with her husband-to-be though so we couldn’t talk about it.

“Then she found out the man she was sleeping with was dating someone else. She got really bitter and twisted about it. They stopped seeing each other and she went through with the wedding and they have a baby now.

“Then there was the time the salon owner Jenny Roberts did a lady’s cut and color then when she went over to pay, the client asked her: ‘I’m thinking of having an affair, what do you think?’”

One woman found her hubby having sex on the carpet

Daniel Antcliff , of Daniel Antcliff Hair Salon, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire says: “One woman told me how she came home one day and the door was locked so she went round to the patio door to find her husband having sex on the front room carpet with their 20-year-old next door neighbor. He used to come into the salon too.

“I cut another lady’s hair and she was married - but I heard from another customer who knows the couple that her husband was playing away. The wife had no idea. I couldn’t say anything - I had to keep my mouth shut. He’s since admitted and they’ve recently split. When she actually told me about the affair, I said: ‘I can’t believe that!’ even though I’d known about it for a year and a half!”

A nurse used to tell me about people with unusual injuries

Heidi Isherwood , a senior stylist at a top Manchester salon for 15 years, says: “The funniest client I used to have was an A&E nurse who used to tell me about people who came to hospital with unusual injuries and things inserted where they shouldn’t be, with an excuse like ‘I slipped on the stairs and landed on it’.

“You can go from crying laughing one minute to having a client crying on you in sorrow the next. I had one client whose hair I had cut for years, and I had also done his son’s hair. So I asked him how his son was and he broke down in tears saying that his son had died in a car crash and he was having his hair cut for the funeral.”

The couple was undressed... They invited me for some fun

Andrew Barton of Urban retreat at Harrods, in London, says: “I was once asked to visit a client at her home to dress her and her husband’s hair for a special event. I arrived to be greeted by them both completely undressed and invited in for some fun! But just like a good friend a good hairdresser must also know when to say no.”

Clients call their husbands every name under the sun

Matthew Threlfall from Freddie’s in Rossendale, Lancashire, says “I have had clients who have split up with their husbands, called them every name under the sun, told me everything they have been up to, and then a few months later got back together with them and we have to keep it all secret.

Sometimes if people are telling particularly outrageous stories we have to remind them to keep their voices down as some of our older clients might not appreciate it!

“It isn’t just their sex lives that people talk about though. When big events happen like Paris, people do talk about it in the shop and it sometimes gets a whole debate going. And something like I’m a Celebrity can practically start a war in here - Lady C has everyone talking.”

One married guy used to meet women online for sex

Andy Clarke , from London, has been hairdressing for 33 years and says: “I had one married guy who had started meeting women online for sex. He had been to meet one of these women when he got stopped for speeding on the motorway. His wife found out when she saw the speeding fine letter and went on to divorce him.

“If people have been bereaved they often want to talk about it. That is when you have to know when to put the hairdryer down and just give them a hug and let them talk.”

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