Ask any woman and she will tell you that finding a good hair stylist is harder than finding a good man. And believe me, this anomaly crosses gender lines. Men have had careers ruined by a bad blow dry. Yes, indeed, a bad hair day can be a real deal breaker. Just ask Nick Nolte.
Hair care was so much simpler a few decades ago. Your hair pretty much just hung out around your head until you had an important function to go to, at which time we girls got one of those “up-dos” that resembled a wedding cake on top of our heads. The showstopper was the popular beehive that was rumored to contain nests of spiders. Lately, for some bizarre reason such as incoming radio death beams from Mars, hair maintenance has become far more complicated, leaving us utterly addicted to our stylists.
Whatever happened to the good old days when we bonded for life with our hair stylist (who used to be known as a “beautician” named Marge or Jean)? Today we’re riddled with hair infidelity, drifting awkwardly from one stylist to the next, ashamed because we’ve been tempted by cuter hair elsewhere. Pretty soon we’re sneaking off to different salons, spending time with other stylists, vainly seeking happiness. Yes, friends, we’re shampooing around.
For me it all started when I found some unwanted “natural highlights” in my hair. I went the do-it-yourself route for a while, but one day I had to stop kidding myself and admit that my hair color resembled nothing in the natural world. Plus my perpetual self-trimming left me looking like an over-the-hill Bon Jovi. Thus began my daunting search for a hair stylist, booking an appointment six months into the future because it seems a gifted stylist is harder to get in with than a good brain surgeon.
When I met my new stylist, we had a meaningful conversation about what I was looking for in a hairstyle, and let’s be honest here: what we girls want is a hairdo so great that it will make those loser boyfriends sorry they dumped us back in high school. And by George, my hair looked terrific when she was finished, which led to the scary first step of a committed relationship: booking another appointment.
But things went horribly wrong. At my next appointment the stylist who had won my heart by lovingly fussing over me had undergone a drastic personality change. Out of the blue I became the ignored spouse at the breakfast table. She no longer was interested in what I wanted in a hairstyle. She seemed unfazed by the alarming brassiness in my hair. And she found it necessary to chat on her cell phone through my entire appointment. Meanwhile, those shears were flying as I clung miserably to the arms of my chair.
Now let me just say that I love Rod Stewart. But I wasn’t too happy to have his hairstyle duplicated on my head. Meanwhile, I noticed the other stylists were turning out clients that looked ready for a photo shoot at Vogue. It wasn’t long before I was gazing at those other stylists with longing. Yes, I was ready to take my love to town. Could I see another stylist without my stylist finding out? Maybe I could come in on my stylist’s day off. Perhaps she’d never have to know I was seeing somebody new. I was about to cheat, sneak around with someone else, condemned to look continually over my shoulder in case she stopped by to check the level of her “Born Blonde #7.” I mean, what then? Hide my head humiliatingly beneath my drape?
In the end there was nothing to do but leave, and I drifted aimlessly between salons, never feeling satisfied. Then one day I found her: the perfect stylist. She could cut; she could color; she could make your grandmother look like Angelina Jolie. I swore I’d always be true.
“So who do you want to look like today?” she asks me, a naughty gleam in her eye. “Victoria’s Secret model or porn star?”
“Oh, yes – all of the above,” I answer breathlessly. And when I get out of her chair I have hair that tempts me to look up those old boyfriends, toss back my mane and say with a throaty laugh, “Ha!! Look what you missed, loser!!”
And this would have been that happily-ever-after kind of story had it not been for a tragic case of bang envy. I’d made the regrettable decision to grow them out, even though they were seriously impacting my driving ability. Then one day I spotted a hairdo with flippy, flirty bangs, and I picked up a pair of scissors.
Oh, sure, I could have waited until my next appointment to get my bangs back, but I was obsessed. Besides, I watch those self-styling tips on TV, and know about trimming bangs by making random perpendicular slashes. So I closed my eyes, hung my head over the sink and snipped away. Wow – they were looking pretty good. Closing my eyes, I snipped a little more. Just to, you know, even things up. Yikes – what was that in the sink? Oh, dear God, I’d cut off my eyelashes! And my bangs still weren’t even. Oh, boy. My hair was toast.
Apprehensively, I returned to my stylist a few weeks later. I fidgeted nervously as, with furrowed brow, she examined my oddly contoured bangs, irrefutable evidence that other scissors had touched my hair. Now I respect her way too much to offer some namby-pamby excuse for this transgression. I’d confess and beg her forgiveness.
“So do you want to tell me what happened to these bangs?” she sniffed, holding up a couple of battered locks. “Oh, it was just the darndest thing,” I said, laughing a bit hysterically. “You’ll never believe this, but gosh! My hair caught on fire.” Lying to my hair stylist: it was the beginning of the end.
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at
Ga*********@*ol.com.
