a series of stylists

I am not a loyal stylist customer.  It’s not that I am overly critical of past work performed on my fine, yet also coarse, rapidly graying hair.  I have enjoyed wonderful hair miracles.  It’s just that I am impatient and impulsive.  My roots don’t grow in gradually like yours do.  Mine suddenly appear!  An inch deep!  And it requires an immediate remedy.  Also, if I notice a friend has a bounce in her step due to her perfectly applied high/low lights, I am instantly envious and want to meet her stylist.  This afternoon, please! 

If it cannot be done today, then I have, on a few occasions, attempted an-at home remedy with disastrous results. 

Whether I have cheated on my stylist with another stylist or with a box of Clairol, it is so uncomfortable admitting what I have done.  I am tempted to fib (I was at my parents’ house so I went to see my Mom’s stylist . . you were unavailable . . .I was bedridden for many weeks and in desperation was left to my own hair color devices  . . ). 

Like most cheaters, I am a bad liar.

Being this disloyalty has its perks:  I’ve been to about every kind of salon imaginable.  I’ve been to the super fancy ones with the high price tags, the small town ones with the ladies getting a curl-and-set, the salons where the only service performed is a dry haircut and the stylist has a bright blue Mohawk, and the “cool” salons meant for young beautiful people. 

I am uncomfortable at the cool salons.  If the waiting area is super-sleek and has magazines I do not recognize, I break out into a sweat and start noticing the lint on my suit, the scuffs on my courtroom heels, my cuticles.  I sometimes return to the cool places despite my discomfort because, well, the cool stylists know the famous people!  They have attended fancy trade shows or worked in a New York salon, and they have the best stories.  Like the time a has-been 80s Rock Star insisted on having his frosting applied at the crack of dawn so his fans wouldn’t know.  I love that story in particular because my cool stylist remarked “As if any of us knew him?  I was like, our Moms aren’t here.  You are not even relevant.”

Real life happens in salons.  Right in front of you eyes.  Round up seven or eight women and a few men, dress them in the latest fashion and place them in front of mirrors.  Now add a steady stream of customers and listen.  You will learn who has a new boyfriend, who is giving the owner the silent treatment or who just had “elective” surgery instead of paying her credit card bill.  This openness will prompt you to share your news, sometimes in a moment of spontaneous candor.  This is why my friend/stylist Paris was one of the first people to know I was pregnant with my first-born. 

If you prefer, you can just sit there quietly and check your emails or read a book, and that is ok too. 

A good stylist not only knows how to cut, color and style hair, she is an unlicensed counselor.  It is no surprise the stylist relationship is special.  There is something so personal about allowing someone to touch your hair.  Whether it is a new stylist, an old stylist, a salon in a detached garage, or a place worthy of a photo shoot, a stylist is performing an act of kindness.  She is making it better.  She is concentrating on you.  She is improving you.  In a matter of minutes a diagnosis is made, the patient is heard, and there is a treatment plan. 

I think most stylists know their value extends beyond the strands of our hair.  Like, when my friend/stylist Dawn made a house-call for the purpose of artfully styling what was once a long full mane, but was falling out in large swaths following merciless cancer treatment.  Dawn gave what she could, but she also received.  She was able to help.  In some way, she was making it better.    

Or take my mother-in-law (my Other Mother), a retired stylist.  Holly worked for decades in a local bank.  But, before her banking days, she obtained what was then likely called a Cosmetology License.  Holly held on to what she learned and kept her scissors sharp.  For years she cut her husband Houston’s hair.  Sometime in 2004, Holly cut his namesake’s hair too. 

Little Houston had a tangle of blond curls at the back of his neck.  Though his Mom thought they should stay put (forever if possible), it was time for them to go.  So Holly cut little Houston’s curls.  And for the next eight years, she continued to give him haircuts.  I imagine (because I am not there) that the routine is the same:  Holly notices her grandson needs a haircut, has him sit on a stool, wraps the smock around his neck, and starts snipping.  I suspect she takes a little longer than necessary.  Because for several minutes that boy is finally still.