Keeping yourself nice

Staying pretty and smelling sweet in a hot and dusty Asian town can be difficult.

 

It's not just the lines of grime circling my neck or the sticky-rice goo stuck under my nails. The heat induces unsightly sweat marks and a red face and a strong sense of "who gives a sh*t what I look like?". (Or maybe that's just me?)

 

Despite the dust and then mud and dust again; the difficulties with waste disposal and public amenities; the propensity for mould to grow and noodle soup to splash; Lao people are mostly amazingly neat, tidy, clean and well groomed. (How do Lao kids maintain such gleaming white school shirts?).

The FIVE Ps

I have a few theories... let's call them "the five Ps" - Public Grooming (totally OK here), Products (everywhere and cheap - especially skin whitening products) and People and Places (there are so many people and places happy to charge a little bit of money for a lot of pampering) and Price (cheap, even for lots of locals - with jobs)

 

My feet - not so public (I paid extra and got a wall on the salon)
 

Public Grooming

You don't have to look far in Vientiane to see someone getting a shave, haircut, ear-dewax or dry skin on their heels filed off by an enterprising person with a plastic tub and little plastic stool. There are less inhibitions here than at home about public grooming. I've seen a lot of hair combing and skin inspection in motorbike side mirrors. Then there's the semi-public body scrubbing and oatmeal face-pack wearing at the steamy sauna. Whenever you are paying someone else to attend to your personal hygiene or beauty regime, it's pretty public (there are often walls missing).

Street-side pedicure - 10,000 Kip

 

 

 A manicure while waiting at the bus station

 

Even when you go to a salon, it's not always private.  Some shops or salons are open to the market or the street (great if you are sneakily taking photos of other people  having stuff done to their bodies, not so great if you are a privacy-seeking customer!)

 

 In the middle of the market

Open walled shop with a beautician doing something skillful with a brush and a man's ear. And I'm pretty sure that's an Angry Birds cushion!!

A little boy playing in a swivel barber's chair

A hair wash in progress behind the veggies

  

More open-air salons in markets better known for their flapping fish and piles of pumpkins.

Products

Soap, bleach, shampoo, creams, chemicals that bleach your skin and a zillion other cleaning products are everywhere and cheap.

Shelves of stuff

And more shelves of "beauty products" stuff

 

And more

 

There are a lot of personal hygiene products around and most have skin whitening chemicals in them.

  

Whiter skin = beautiful? Huh? Damn, all that sun damage I've given myself trying to look like Bridget Bardot - for nothing!

 

 

more white stuff

white everything

Isn't this stuff illegal in some countries?

 

white white white

Sheesh, what's with the white?

 

There are some great products for the top of my head - if only I could find one in my hair colour

 

 

People and Places

At risk of repeating myself, there are lots of places to get stuff done. Massages, pedicures, hair removal...

 Brian getting one of several massages

 

 More offers that are hard to resist

 

And signs are everywhere - telling us to get this done; have this treatment; look like this; don't love what you are, love what you can become with the right product and treatment and modification. Kind of just like home, really.

 



The "beauty" images here are less sexual than those I have become used to

 

 

A product that makes things seem natural! Now there's an idea.

 

Men can't avoid the pressure to look "good" either...

 

Mr Perfect apparently looks like this. Still haven't seen the real thing. Keeping an eye out, though.

I don't know what BB cream is but I suspect I don't need it

 

 

Price

Prices are pretty enticing, too. 

 

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Front hair cut only 30,000 and wash and roll in owen is 40,000K (around $5.40 AUD). I hope Owen doesn't mind. 

 

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Black head phimpls removal plus a bit of arm hair breaching sounds like hours of fun for the whole family. Not to mention the Aroma MSG. Not sure if that goes on or in something...

 

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Under foot srape and half an hour of drawing flower on hand for only 50,000? Bargain! ($6.75)

 

 

Equipment and Sanitation  

I have absolute faith in the place I last had a pedicure when they say they replace the dry skin shaver razor for each customer. I even believe it when they have a sign up that says they use fresh clean towels. The plastic tub and stool places at the market strangely don't have those signs.

 

Some places have some serious looking modernish equipment

Fancy beautician stuff

Others... not so much...

Simple yet effective -what else do you want? Hot water or something? Sheesh.

 

You know you're soaking in it.

Several months of soaking in this culture and I have become completely convinced that I MUST HAVE regular massages, hair washes, pedicures and steamy sauna sessions to detox and relax. And I might even have a hair cut one day.

 

But I am pretty sure I won't be going for the skin whitening stuff.