Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

There are three individuals in my life who I trust so much that I will travel several miles to ensure that they, and only they, will administer to my needs. Those people are:

1. My dentist
2. My auto mechanic
3. My hairdresser

I think anyone reading this will understand Number 1, as the person who fixes your dental problems can inflict a lot of pain. Number 2 is a no-brainer also, as a mechanic you can actually trust is worth his or her weight in gold.

But my husband has never understood my devotion to my hairdresser. And why should he? Have you ever seen my husband? He’s bald as a baby’s butt, and has been since he lost most of his hair prematurely at the age of 23.

Fortunately (for both of us), he has no vanity or self-consciousness about being “follicle-ly challenged.”  He’s comfortable with his baldness.

If only I were so lucky.

Have you ever noticed how after several years of marriage, couples tend to start looking like one another? I never thought that would happen to us, but several years ago, I noticed that my own hair had started to thin, and now it’s at a point where I’ve got quite a nice bald spot taking shape at the top of my head. And while a man can look quite attractive without hair, it’s tough when a woman loses her “crowning glory.”

My reaction to this development was to adopt my own version of a comb-over, by adopting a hairstyle with bangs. To be honest, I HATE bangs – but I hate the sight of bare skin at the top of my forehead even more. I expect that there will soon be a time when I can’t disguise it any longer and I’ll be forced to add hats and scarves to my wardrobe. Maybe even a wig. But I’d like to put that off for as long as I can.

It took me a long time to find a hairdresser who understands that I’m less interested in being trendy than I am in creating the illusion that I’ve got an entire head of hair. I did it by wandering into one of those expensive movie star salons on Ventura Boulevard. Stefanee gave me the best cut and color I’d ever had, and if it cost a bit more than it would in my own neighborhood, I didn’t care. As the slogan goes, “I’m worth it.”

But that was a couple of years ago, when times were flush. Today, we appear to be in the throes of a recession, and we are feeling it in our household. I’ve been doing what I can to cut the fat out of our budget as fast as our gas and grocery bills have risen.

First to go was the housecleaner (an admitted luxury). I told the trainer who helped me lose 50 pounds that his services were no longer necessary (not true, but I need that $40 a week to refill my gas tank). I cancelled HBO (I’ll catch the next season of Entourage on Netflix).  We cancelled our summer vacation and informed our daughter that she would have to skip this year’s sleep-away camp.

The only personal indulgence I had left was the money I spend on grooming. I tried going longer between salon visits, but what little hair I have left grows fast, and the illusion of thick bangs requires more frequent trimming.

The reappearance of my gray roots didn’t look all that attractive, either.

I was reminded of the last time our budget took this kind of hit and I compensated by coloring my hair myself and getting it styled at SuperCuts. The results weren’t pretty. It took several expensive treatments to get rid of the straw-like texture left by the cheap dye. No, I wasn’t going to do that again.

I had briefly considered going to the beauty college next door to my favorite Starbucks, but I’d observed too many of their students hanging out there, and right or wrong, I did not have a lot of faith in their abilities or training.

Then I noticed that there was a new Paul Mitchell school at the Galleria. That’s a high rent location for a company with a high profile name, with reputable products (including cosmetology)? I decided to check them out. After all, the worst that could happen is that I’d have to wear a scarf for a few weeks while my hair grew back out, right?

I checked out their website, and saw that you could indeed get an appointment with a student in training. However, there were no hours posted; nor were there prices. I decided to walk in and ask.

I discovered that there are two tiers of prices, depending upon how much experience a student has racked up. Students who were in Phase 1 of training are the cheapest, but they are only available to do coloring at specific days and times.

Cheap cut and color added up to a mere $41. That’s about one-fourth of what I’d been spending at the movie star hair salon.

I decided to give it a try.

I was a little nervous the day I showed up for my appointment. The school may be in a fashionable part of town, but the service is definitely no-frills: no changing room, no one offering to get you coffee, and I had no idea who would be working on my hair.

My nerves shot up a little higher when I was asked to sign a release form stating that I understood that my hair would be cut by someone who is not a “skilled and trained operator” and that I agreed not to hold the school “liable or accountable for any injury or damage that may occur to me and/or my clothing as a result of work performed on me in this school.”

The form also stated that I would be charged “a minimum of $10-14 for any chemical service redos” and that no work was “guaranteed beyond two weeks from the date the service was performed.”

Gulp.

I glanced at the students scurrying around the floor as they prepared to meet their guinea pi – er, clients.  Multiple tattoos and piercings would not inspire confidence in an attorney or an accountant, but somehow they add a certain aura of credibility to young people in creative fields.

I spied a woman with a deep magenta Diablo Cody type hair style and wondered if I could get away with that at my age. Maybe next time; just making the appointment was probably as adventurous as I wanted to be at the time.

I felt somewhat reassured when I met Roxana, the student who would be taking care of me that day. She was careful, confident and mature beyond her 23 years. I also noted that a supervisor  was keeping a careful eye on all the students in our area, stopping by our chair and offering advice every step of the way. I started to relax.

I almost lost it again when Roxana presented me with the book of color swatches for my hair. It had been so long since I’d seen a hairdresser that what color was left in my hair had become quite brassy. I had a hard time describing what I’d been doing, chickened out on the Diablo magenta and ended up getting a very dark brown – similar to my natural hair color (before the gray started coming in).

Roxana applied the color with a steady hand. I noticed that the supervisor was nodding his approval. His name tag read “Thaddeus.”

“You’re in good hands,” he told me.

I began to relax. Roxana and I chit chatted about our lives, her boyfriend, her future plans once she finished her 1600 hours of training and obtained her license. She was hoping for a studio job, working in TV or film production. That’s a good gig for a young person, I told her.

Then we got to the hard part: time to cut the hair. Thaddeus held some of my fine, thinning strands and showed Roxana where to add in some layers to create the illusion of fullness. She showed him my bald spot.

“Wait until it’s dry and cut that last,” he instructed.

“How’s that?,” she asked me as she cut the bangs. I started to feel panicked; there was not enough hair to hide the skin at the top of my forehead. I asked if there was any way she could make them look fuller. She brought some hair from the top of my head and combed it into place. Then she called Thaddeus back to our chair.

He scowled a little as he fingered my hair. “You’re not going to be able to make it look thick,” he said.
Great, I thought. It was time to shop for that wig.

He grabbed a comb and did a little rearranging. “I would not go any farther than this,” he said.

Roxana finished the bangs and you know what? They looked good. In fact, I ended up with a cut that looked almost as nice as the ones I get from Stefanee.

I was patting myself on the back as I left the school for saving myself $120, when I passed a woman I recognized as another client. She had chosen that Diablo Cody color, and in the wind, I noticed that a lot of it had ended up on her neck and cheekbones.

Maybe I had just been lucky.

For $120, I’ll take that chance again.

Original 50-Something Moms Blog post, cross-posted at LA Moms Blog by Donna Schwartz Mills. Read more of her take on crazy Southern California life at her personal blog, SoCal Mom.