Following Orders

Not very long ago I learned an interesting lesson at work thanks to a relative of mine. This relative, who we’ll call Bebe, is a delightful relation whose bubbly personality and accident prone behaviors have provided me with great amusement for many years. There is just one problem with Bebe, she thinks she knows what’s best for her hair. But she doesn’t. Many of you hairdressers out there, and some of you clients, know what I am talking about. Bebe thinks that her hair is capable of certain styles that it really isn’t. She also picks out specific looks for her hair that do not translate well on her head. Yes Posh Spice has a great hairstyle, but on Bebe it would make her look like a weeble. She hasn’t quite come to the realization yet that her hair simply will not do certain things and some of the things she wants sound very good in theory but are not going to actually turn out well in practice. When she started coming to me Bebe’s hair was a messy, brassy, fried hay stack. And I was able to heal it, shape it, color it realistically, and make her quite lovely. Even though she has a very limited range of styles thanks to her hair’s growth patterns, I was still able to get her hair to behave in ways she had never imagined. For several years her hair looked amazing. Then I made a big mistake. I allowed a couple of Jr. Stylists at my shop to take her over. My Jr. Stylists have all been trained by me and they are truly exceptional at color, cut and styling so I thought we’d be safe. The one thing I forgot to think about was that they were still novices at handling difficult and insistent clients. Bebe is sweet and wonderful, but when she thinks she knows what she wants, she can wheedle and whine and convince until before you know it you have moved into a whole different direction with her hair that she lead you to. I taught my younger stylists everything I know in the science, chemistry and beauty of hair, but I neglected to teach them how to handle people like Bebe. Months passed and Bebe’s hair was not where I wanted it to be. It wasn’t bad, just short, and curly and more ashy than I’d prefer and she was looking less glamorous than I had originally made her. She also didn’t like her hair at all anymore and I heard about this ad-nauseum at family functions. So one day I observed her with one of the Jr. Stylists and I saw the problem. It was her! Not my talented young protégé. Bebe sat in the chair and directed the stylist every step of the way, “I don’t like this piece here. I don’t have time in the morning to straighten that out there. Can you make this part darker? Now cut right here. Did you cut enough, well cut it again right in that spot.“ It was no wonder she was beginning to look like a Snuffy Smith maw maw. She was insisting that the stylist do so many things that were contradictory to the over all vision of her style that it had become an on-going mess. Of course at the end of it all, she didn’t like her hair again.

This is a running problem in salons everywhere. I get letters every so often about this very thing. Some clients want to be in full control of their hair cut or color even though they do not know the first thing about hairdressing. The end result is usually a product that they are not happy with. Stylists have asked me why I think some clients behave this way and are so critical during the process. I have given it some thought and I think the answer lies in the fact that there are mirrors in front of clients while they are having their hair done. In our day of immediate gratification and rushed patience we expect to be wowed every step of the way, especially with the amount of money a big league hairdresser costs. But the problem with this is that you cannot judge the final result on what the process looks like. It would be like throwing out the cake when its finished baking because it doesn’t look like it will once the icing is on. There is a process and it isn’t always clear or pretty at the halfway mark, but if you are patient and quiet you’ll see the end result and be pleased. So on Bebe’s next visit, I arranged for me to do her hair again. The first thing that I did was sit her down in the chair and tell her to keep her mouth closed. I said that I watched her in action the last time and finally understood what the problem was. She was directing her stylist on what to do, which completely upset the plan the stylist had for her hair, and she was so insistent about her opinion that she was able to confuse the young stylist into thinking that maybe Bebe’s way would make her happier. I explained that because Bebe was my relative, the stylist was too intimidated to refuse what she wanted, even though it was in direct contradiction to what best suited her look. So I told Bebe that she wasn’t going to direct me. I have been doing this for over two decades and there is no one else that I know of except the man who trained me that knows more about how to handle, repair and retrain hair than I, so her assistance was not needed. At the end of the appointment she looked beautiful. Of course because of her prior interferences we had a few months of re-growth ahead of us in order to get her hair back on the track we had originally intended. Those months have passed and it is now where it is supposed to be and she looks amazing again. Because Bebe works an odd schedule, she can’t always get in with me without prebooking her appointments, so she has now had to go back to a Jr. Stylist. But now on each visit I remind them to do what they know to be best and tune her opinions out completely. They do, and she looks glamorous and beautiful every time she leaves.

Sometimes a stylist has to intervene and let the client know that the problem with their hair is not the person doing it, but the fact that she won’t let them do what they know it needs. It is only really a problem when the client will not accept that the stylist knows more than they do. This is especially problematic with color corrections. I had a lady come to me a few weeks back that had terribly damaged hair. Her ends were crispy and the hair just snapped in places when I ran my hands through it. Of course she wanted highlights, my specialty. But I was not about to put the first highlight in her hair without at least a month of deep conditioning and a restorative regiment to get her hair back into the safe zone. She didn’t understand my hesitance and went on and on about how her previous hairdresser never had any issues with her hair. He always highlighted it for her and she didn’t understand why there was such a problem with me. I tried to be polite and not insult anyone. I do not like speaking poorly of a client’s old hairdresser. Its just not very professional in my opinion to bad-mouth a fellow stylist, especially if I don’t even know them. But I know color. Color and me are like Lindsay Lohan and alcohol, we just go together. I have spent most of my life coloring hair and repairing damage from other people’s bad color jobs, and I know what I am talking about. I had to step in and point out that her previous hairdresser had not properly cared for her hair or prepared it for the extensive bleaching and high-lightings he had given her. He had also failed to advise her on the products she needed to care for it at home between her color services and that was the reason her hair was in its current shape. She argued with me for several minutes, but I stood firm. I knew that the second I did anything to her hair it was going to start breaking off in large chunks and then she would be all over town screaming that Todd Cargo ruined her hair, even though it had been ruined well before she came to me. I told her that we would do some treatments on her hair before she left and that she should take a couple of items home with her to give herself more treatments during the week. I also said that I needed to see her every week for three weeks and after that we would be safe enough to highlight. Well, that didn’t happen. She got huffy, repeated that her other stylist never had any of the problems I was having and generally made a spectacle of herself at my salon. When I asked her why she just didn’t go back to her previous hairdresser, she explained that he no longer worked there and she didn’t like the new place he had gone to work, it had been somewhat of a step down salon-wise. I pointed out that this in itself helped to prove my point that he was probably not a very good colorist and had damaged her hair by his ignorance. She didn’t like what I was saying and said so. I explained that she was free to get a second opinion. There are some amazing stylists in this town and I even referred her to a couple of them. I told her that I wasn’t the only color expert in Birmingham and I was confident that they’d tell her the same thing. So she left my place in search of someone who‘d do what she wanted. I heard through the grapevine that she went to another salon, who like me, refused to color her hair. As I had said they would, they recognized that her hair was too far over the danger point. But someone out there eventually did it, because she (surprisingly) came back to me a few weeks later with her hair breaking off in chunks. And as I predicted, she was furiously blaming that person for ruining her hair.

That’s why it is so important to listen to what your stylist tells you, especially when it isn’t what you want to hear. They want your money as much as anyone else but they only want it when your hair’s integrity is protected and you look and feel amazing. It is their reputation at stake. That poor stylist that ended up doing her hair was not the reason her hair broke off. His (or her) only fault was giving into this demanding woman who was pushing and pushing until she could get her way. I am sure he or she tried to tell her what I and the other stylist did, but she was unwilling to accept it. Then after it was all said and done, he was the one to get the blame for her hair, not the person who put it in that position originally.

The worst thing we can do for you as your service provider is to do something that we know is going to compromise the integrity of your hair. We have to be firm at times and go the direction we know to be best. After all you wouldn’t keep going to the same doctor that tells you it’s all right to walk around on that broken leg would you? Well, we are hair doctors and our only goal is to make you look and feel the best you can. So listen to those warnings and follow the advice so that your hair will always be as healthy and beautiful as possible.

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