I don't know why, but I have the hardest time understanding hair cutters in France. It is as if they all took a course on how to speak at just the right frequency that I can only hear hard consonants. I mean they just start talking, and it is not that I wouldn't necessarilly understand what they are trying to say to me, but I can't hear them! Yesterday they repeated something three times for me and finally they just asked if I spoke English. I felt totally stupid. And the music is always so loud! And I'm used to loud music! Whenever I go into a French salon, I feel befuddled by all the noise and the inablility to hear anything anyone says to me. And it doesn't help that I have no idea how to describe what I want done to my hair in French, so I just end up saying something about layers then they tell me what they want to do, which I can't hear, so I just nod and say oui and hope it turns out ok. So far so good.
Conclusion- get a hearing aide specifically for getting my haircut.