I believe it was John Waters who so famously dubbed Baltimore the hairdo capital of the world. To be a true female Baltimoron, one has to have suffered through at least one semester wearing "Baltimore bangs" - bangs which are long enough to be curled and pouffed out with the use of a round brush, a curling iron, and/or a ton of hairspray. Denise Whiting, owner of the Cafe Hon (who earlier this year famously pissed off the entire city by having trademarked the word "hon"), created the annual Honfest in Hampden, where cat's eye glasses and extremely high bouffants are the uniform.
Most Baltimore ladies of the 21st century, of course, have foresworn such extremes of hair - including me. But it still takes a lot of work to look this natural, from color to cut. And I am very very picky about my hair. So when I had my last session of 2011 with my hometown hairdresser, whom I love, I asked her to write down my color formula, and I am carrying it in my wallet.
My game plan for finding a hairdresser down here was to look around at the hair on the ladies I see in my little community, and when I find one with good hair, ask her who her hairdresser is. The problem is, I haven't seen any hair that's looked good. This is partly because most of the people here in Seabrook at the moment are middle-aged or older, and hair does not appear to be their priority. In fact, many of them are pushing the envelope of female baldness. A very very nice lady who's a passing acquaintance was very enthusiastic about taking me into her beauty shop out here on the island and introducing me to everyone - and everyone looked like they were sitting in God's own waiting room. Strike two. Meanwhile, I've been getting grayer by the day.
So I had to go to Plan B for finding a temporary hairdresser: internet search. I put in the usual search terms (like "best" and "salon" and "Charleston," the latter because that is the nearest big city) and came up with several repeats, so I just took the plunge and chose one. Called, and, knowing nothing about any particular stylists, could do no better in choosing one than to ask for a "senior stylist" or a "master stylist" - this minimizes the chances that I'll get some kid fresh out of beauty school. They've given me to a guy. I am dubious. Haven't had a lot of tremendous success with male hairdressers except for my beloved Benny, who cut my hair gorgeously for years, until he fell down the steps inside his apartment in a drugged-out fog one night and died of head trauma.
Anyway, tomorrow is the big day. I am armed with my iPad, with photos of the cut I want (not much different from what I have now, and how much damage can they do in two months' time, really) and as for the color, I'm kinda sick of mine so I'm going to let him do whatever he wants. My hair has been just about every color known to nature except flat black, anyway (no blue, no pink, no green - I mean normal hair colors), so I'll probably like whatever color it turns out to be. The shlep into Charleston from here is going to take about an hour, so I hope the journey will be worth it. I'm a little bit nauseated thinking about it, to be honest. I do not want to come out of that shop looking like a big-haired idiot from Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (ok, if I could have their bodies, I'd accept the big hair.) Nor do I want to come out looking like a post-menopausal lesbian. (When they start cutting your hair short, ladies of my age all have the tendency to start looking like Barbara Mikulski, a nun, or a truck driver.) Told you I was picky. Pray.
