2003-06-21
Little Lord Fauntleroy
My new haircut is so fabulous, I can't even stand myself. Amy told me it's really 80s, which is why I think I like it so fricking much.
I haven't spent more than 10 dollars on a haircut in years. However, my newly acquired bout of vanity sent me searching for a "salon". I recalled going out for dinner one night and asking the server where she got her hair cut (she had REALLY good hair). True to my impulsive nature, I called and made my appointment.
Well, I'm no idiot. I don't know these stylists from Adam, and I'm not showing up and turning my tresses over to them without an insurance policy. So I brought a picture. You know the ones from those hairstyle magazines with photos of women wearing too much blue eyeliner and tilting their heads "just so" to accentuate their trendy cut. The ones where you go, "I want my hair to look like THAT," even though you have wavy hair and the model's hair is naturally poker straight. "Do it. Make me look JUST like that." I mean, I'm not the type to cry over a bad haircut but at least if it turns out badly, I brought a fricking picture, so it can't be MY FAULT.
So I turn over the picture and my locks to a complete stranger. She's cutting and we're chatting and I'm not really paying attention to what she's doing because there are two little kids causing havoc all over the salon and chasing the owner's dog while their mom gets her hair highlighted and screams at them to STOP IT every three seconds. The stylist starts drying my hair, and that's when I started to freak out just a little bit.
Like I said, I'm not really the type to cry over a bad haircut, but I was starting to look like Little Lord Fauntleroy.
She cut my hair EXACTLY as I asked her to, but man, this was not turning out right. Basically my hair was shorter and slightly layered in the back, angling forward to about chin length in the front. Which is where the problem was. It was all curled under and looking fricking ridiculous. AND THEN SHE BROUGHT OUT THE FLATIRON.
"I saw that on American Idol," I shrieked, realizing after the words came out of my mouth that she might not share my love of the aforementioned show, nor was she aware of the level of my obsession with it. She commented that she saw them using it on Clay and Ryan, and immediately she was my stylist for life. I wanna look like Little Lord Fauntleroy FOREVER if it means having my hair done by someone with such good taste in television!
I was in a bit of a trance at this point, so I didn't notice what this thing was doing to my hair. IT WAS MAKING IT LOOK LIKE THE PICTURE! I LOOKED LIKE THE PICTURE, ONLY BETTER EVEN! I was falling in love with myself all over the fricking place. My hair had never been so straight in my life. As a child, my hair had always been really thick and dark, but a little wave here and there kept me from getting that great Cher look I so loved. My hair is nowhere near as thick as it was back in the day, but it's not horrible. I just never knew it could look like THIS.
I was especially excited because I had just attempted to highlight my own hair with one of those new kits where you just "comb" the strands you want lightened. It was B.S., people, total B.S.! The "highlighting cream" was just that powdered peroxide women used to use to bleach their upper lip hairs. I ended up looking like I did in 1984 when my friends and I thought it would be cool to put Sun-In in our bangs, because we were so punk. Two hours after my botched highlighting job I colored my hair dark brown in an attempt to get my natural color back and vowing for the millionth time that I would never color my hair again. Yeah right.
So here I was sitting in the chair of a REAL SALON watching my hair turn HOLLYWOOD. I called everyone I knew and told them I was Jennifer Aniston or Courteney Cox.
I ran right out and bought me one of those flatirons. I bought every hair product made for "straight hair" I could find. I came home and flipped my hair around in the mirror for an hour. I was vanity personified.The stylist told me not to use the flatiron every day because it would fry my hair if I did. Works for me.
Hey, Little Lord Fauntleroy, nice knowin' ya.
joeparadox at 5:34 p.m.