A Nation of Hairdressers

Illinois, headed for Wisconsin

I am a natural blonde. Or I was, once. When I was born my hair was so white, people compared me to Brad Pitt in that movie where he goes from old to young over the course of his life. Okay, that movie wasn’t out yet, but where do you think they got the idea?

I was a towhead for all my growing up years, and I soon became aware of its color, its silkiness and its length. For a chubby kid, my hair was my beauty spot and if I didn’t particularly like my eight-year-old figure, I could always revel in my head with its long silky locks.

It darkened over time, of course. Nobody has that kind of hair when they’re past puberty. Or rather, nobody comes by it naturally. Sorry, Britney Spears, your secret is out.

My hair is naturally wavy, not curly or straight, and very susceptible to humidity, which sort of puts me in nowhere land, style-wise. In college I used to iron my hair. Or wrap it around toilet paper rolls. The problem was, I’d fall asleep on them and wake up with crushed toilet-paper-roll hair. You don’t want to know.

I got married, had a baby, then another, and my hair grew gradually darker. Dark blonde, I was, by then. And then I hit 40 and welcomed my first white hairs. Like my grandmothers on both sides, I never had grey hair. It went from blonde to white. Which was kind of cool for a while, except that eventually the white started asserting itself a bit too much for me, so I began to color it. I found a great colorist at Frederic Fekkai, a name you might have heard of, who only charged me $250 to put my “real” color back.

That got old pretty fast, and I switched to Barbara, then Louise, then Kit, then Barbara again, because she was the best of the lot. Not a $250 hairdresser, but not cheap either. Then I retired and “fixed income” took on real meaning, so I began to get to know Miss Clairol. I found that Monsieur L’Oreal delivered a better product, so I switched again.

But remember, I live in a bus, where the water is pumped in from outside, and you are at the mercy of that campground guy with the beer belly and suspenders, oily t-shirt and sweaty brow, who may just think that recycled or heavy salinated water is just as nice as softened water and a lot cheaper, so as good as your dye job is, the water may make it look like straw anyway.

First we bought a water softener, then we bought a whole new bus with a built-in water softener. That helped a little. But still I longed for the good old silky shiny days.

So I ventured outside the bus and got to know small town USA salons.

I’ve had my hair done in thousands, okay hundreds, of small towns, at prices ranging from $32 to $175, and let me tell you a $175 job isn’t a whole lot better than a $32 job. More importantly, it’s interesting to see what various hairdressers call blonde.

Gary in Florida, who came highly recommended, and whose salon looked like a cross between an Egyptian palace and a 20’s bawdy house, decided blonde was dark brown with white stripes. Wide white stripes.

Gina in Ohio tut-tutted over that one, and decided the only way to fix it was to cross-hatch the dark color as it grew out. I was plaid for a few weeks. Not to worry. I went to CVS and bought a $9.99 hank of fake hair and tacked it onto the back of my slicked-back hair. It was 104 degrees in Kentucky, so it was cooler that way, anyway.

Mary up in Syracuse seemed to know her stuff. Then she smiled and revealed a single front tooth. My color looked like a single tooth would work with it. Hey, no problem. I washed it right away, and some of the orange came out.

Ralph in Pacifica, just below San Francisco, gave me brown for Christmas. He kept asking me for my number. He was gay, so I was confused Turned out colors are numbered and he wanted to know if I was a 6, 7, 8 or 9. I think he made me a 5. As in brunette. My husband thought it was “different” but my son was not amused. He’s the honest one in the family.

I’m headed back to New York, eventually, where I’m hoping Barbara hasn’t retired to the world of punk rock with a little punk rock baby – I know her other life and it scares me, but she can cut and she can color.

I’m going to ask her about a Brazilian. Not a person, and not what you’re thinking of, but a new hair process that makes your frizzy, dry, unkempt hair exceptionally long and strong, sleek and chic. You have to put up with lank for three days while it does its thing but you emerge a diva and your hair is lush, full and glorious. I’ve heard it costs $350, and this is way out of the ballpark, but maybe all my friends who’ve done it are lying. You never know.

Meanwhile, you’d love how my glasses, all three pair of them, one for reading, one for sun, and one for driving, hold back my mop, hide the streaks and generally give me the look of a cool, confident “I’m worth it” woman.

And I am. In a small-town kind of way.