If you work in the service industry as a hairdresser or barber, you're familiar with people opening up to you and revealing many one too many things about themselves. I recently asked hairdressers and barbers of the BuzzFeed Community to share some of the juiciest confessions they've heard from clients. I also took some wild responses from this Reddit thread and this one because they were too good not to include. Buckle up for some of these because they're feral!
Note: Some of these responses have been edited for length and clarity.
1. "Back when I was an assistant, doing shampoos mostly, I was guilty of looking at people's phones a lot when I was washing their hair. It was hard not to when there was nothing else to do while I did the massage! Anyway, I did this one client’s massage. She was married, and I suddenly see her sending these wild partially nude pics to someone who was NOT her husband and all these incredibly sexual S&M texts. Not kink-shaming, but bold of her to do it right in front of my face like that. It was hard to stop reading them and to act like I didn’t notice anything afterward."
2. "A client of mine (in his 60s) openly talks about trying to work things out with his wife (who has been living in another country from him for years) and having an on-and-off-again relationship with his girlfriend. He bought them both the same necklace for Christmas."
3. "It’s impressive how many clients come out as gay later in life and feel like I’m a safe person to open up to before their friends."
—Anonymous
4. "I was doing a new client's hair, and she confessed that she thought that her Stanford University professor husband was cheating on her. It just so happened that a couple of weeks after I met this woman, I saw another new client who confessed that she was seeing her Stanford University professor boss and wanted a new hairstyle to please him. I asked the employee what her boss's name was and she told me his first name. So fast forward to the wife’s next appointment. She thinks her husband is fooling around with his secretary. I unwisely opened my mouth and told her about the secretary’s previous visit and confession. Well, the wife couldn’t get out of my chair fast enough. Guess what? I lost both clients and never saw either one again. I learned to keep my mouth shut after that."
5. "Another client of mine is a guy. Now, I don't have many male clients, but this one is unlike any other male client I have in that he is married to two women, he lives with them both (in separate houses), and the wives don't know about each other. He also has children with both of them! He made a lot of money with stocks in 2008 and is minted, but his wives think he has a regular job in haulage, and he's on the road a lot. It is tough for him around Christmas each year as he has to blow one family out."
6. "A customer once casually announced that she could only orgasm if she imagined her husband as a giant rat when they were having sex."
7. "A client admitted she fucked her stepdad AND his sister...at the same time."
—Coral, New York
8. "While in beauty school, this lady and her son came in for haircuts, and I ended up having to cut the son's hair. He was 18, a pretty attractive guy, and had gorgeous dark brown shoulder-length hair. I went through the consultation and asked how he wanted his hair cut and I was totally flustered because he wanted it buzzed off. I double and triple-checked just to make sure because he had such nice hair. So while making awkward small talk while cutting his hair, I asked why he wanted it cut short. We came to an awkward pause, and he told me quietly that he was going to turn himself in that night to the police, and he didn't want to get lice or anything while in jail. I was slightly taken aback, but the girl next to me had overheard and loudly asked why he was going to jail. He fessed up to domestic violence, and things stayed pretty quiet after that."
9. "Probably the lady who was 80ish and told me in graphic detail about her life as a swinger. Her description of her favorite penis will haunt me for life."
10. "Yesterday. I had a client sing me a two-minute song, including the words 'Wanna have your baby baby' and 'Get all up in ya.' I work in a family salon — I had no idea what to do. No one was helping."
11. "When I was in hair school a guy was moaning when I was shampooing his hair, and he told me the shampoo is like the sex part of the haircut. He would come in all the time to get haircuts."
12. "I have a client who has lied to me over the course of 8 years. She's loud, obnoxious, curses up a storm. She often mixes her stories up. I have to pretend I feel bad for her. Says she's dying at one point. Told me early on in our stylist/client relationship she had cancer and couldn’t have any more children. Come to find out, she was hiding a 3-year-old son from me because of it."
