international news _ 31st August, 2006

Britain Becomes Hairdresser Hell

Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)

Modern Britain is a nation of hairdressers, make-up artists and anti-baldness experts, a new report 'Paradigm Trades: Iconic Jobs of the Early 21st Century' claimed this week,

Work Foundation study author Stephen Overell reached his conclusions after noting that the number of hairdressers has tripled during the 90s to 146,000 with 10,000 more beauticians appearing in the last four years.

"The dextrous manual work of bodily - and by extension psychological - improvement has seldom been in ruder health," he told the Sunday Times, "The new face of manual work is represented by the crafts that aim to make people look better."

The think thank's findings emerged just over a year after another survey of jobs by the City & Guilds organization discovered that four in ten hairdressers are happy in their jobs compared to 1 in six butchers and just one in 9 DJs.

Happy London DJ/ promoter Scottie from Yr Mum, Yr Dad was unimpressed, however, bemoaning the increasing homogenization of clubbers created by the stylists.

"Everyone is starting to look like manufactured manikins," Scottie told Skrufff, "So all these over the top eyebrow styles and darker shades of tan are making their way onto the high street," he complained.

The ultra-extreme dresser stressed that dressing up with individuality remains the defining ethos of his hugely popular club kid packed night Anti-Social, with hair care rules dramatically at odds with mainstream Britain.

"A haircut faux pas for us would be to walk into Toni & Guy and pay £37.50 for it," said Scottee, "You'll often find Ya Dad with a pair of shears and a bottle of bleach on a Friday night. DIY is the way forward."

"And if you want to go for the fully fledged freak look, hair's not very important at all- it's all got to go; eyebrows, tash, the lot. Or if you cant be bothered (like us) hack away when bored and people will always think you're trendy anyway," he laughed.