I need to give you some background info. She has been the ONLY person to touch my hair (with the exception of one time in college when I didn’t have transportation) in about 20 years. She has always been honest with me and will refuse to do things (like cuts or color) if she feels it will make me look bad. I always defer to her opinion, 'cause she’s never been wrong. I have a lot of very straight and baby fine hair with a lot of cowlicks. She knows how to cut it so it lays right.
She works at a barber shop, but she has a little one-seater thing behind her house (think Steel Magnolias). Her son and daughter in law, who I went to school with, live next door and drop in all the time. I have always gone to her home for my cuts. She only charges me $10 for a shampoo, cut, and style (yes, I always tip). Plus you get the local gossip to boot!
She’s always been a little difficult to get in touch with. I usually have to leave 2 messages before she calls back and says “Can you come over now?” or she schedules me around some of her other appointments. It’s not uncommon for her to be cutting someone’s hair while another lady is underneath the dryer for a set. She even travels to nursing homes to set ladies’ hair. Usually, when these older ladies die, she is one that does the hair for the funeral at no cost to the family.
She’s a very nice lady and I adore her. Here’s the problem: this time, I have left at least 5 messages over the last 2 weeks trying to schedule me and my Mom (who is also a regular customer) to no avail. I’m getting desperate and my hair is getting almost uncontrollable. When do I go to a place like Fantastic Sam’s?
I dunno, but I have a similar-yet-different problem - I haven’t been happy with my hair since I moved back from Atlanta six years ago. I’ve been going to the same lady as my mom for awhile, and she’s okay, but I don’t adore it or anything. I want to try somebody different, but it would hurt her feelings - I mean, she looks forward to me coming, she cuts my mom’s hair AND my mom’s friends’ hair, her husband goes to my golf teacher… sigh.
I’m sort of in the same situation as you **Carm6773 **.
The guy that cuts my hair has been a friend since high school. I was actually best friends with his sister and we became friends over the years. When he was going to school he used to practice doing braids and things on my hair.
I’ve moved around, but since I’ve moved back into the area, he has always done my hair. He’s pretty successful and works at a salon in NYC a few days a week and and is involved in another business but still does hair on the side.
He comes to my house and does my hair pretty much at a moments notice and doesn’t charge a lot. As a favor he’s done friends and family members hair and I’ve called him for a family hair emergency at a moments notice.
Because he’s so busy, he’s getting to be a little tough to get in touch with. I’d say I like my hair about 60% of the time. He’s always good about coming back to fix the color or cut if I’m not crazy about it. The color is always great but that’s sort of his thing.
I’m not so crazy about the last haircut he gave me. He told me that I needed something “trendy” that it would younger. The haircut he gave me is sort of like a Victoria Beckman style. It’s sort of a razor cut bob. My hair is a little curly and it’s a lot of work to get it straight and looking good. I was sort of annoyed because he knows my hair.
I think about trying someone else sometime, but I’d feel bad because he is a friend. Plus, according to him I’m “difficult”. I don’t see it that way, but that’s what he said. Maybe I am. Sometimes I think that because he knows me my color or cut isn’t the best he could do. If I went to anyone else he’d know about it and I doubt if I’d get him to do my hair again and who knows if I’d find someone I like better.
Now that I’m reading this, I sound sort of ungrateful.
I feel for you. Count yourself lucky that you got your stylist back. I haven’t had a regular stylist for years. Not since the only shop I ever really felt comfortable with went out of business after the wife(they were a husband and wife business) was killed. I heard much later that it was a robbery, and that’s even sadder, if true.
Finding a decent place is HARD, if you are like me and you want something a little nicer and more personal than Fantastic Sams or Great Clips, but you don’t want to spend a fortune being worked on by young, thin, intensely hip people who make you feel fat, old and frumpish.
I’m so glad to have my Jennifer. The last couple of times weren’t so good- first she did something different that I suggested but was clearly not right for my hair, and then she did something different that she wanted but I didn’t like it, but then this last time we communicated about it. I trusted her to try another new thing she wanted to do, and it turned out very well. Also having fine hair with cowlicks, but wavy, I have always found it incredibly difficult to find someone that can cut it right, and I tend to stick with them. It doesn’t need to be expensive, and shouldn’t be, but the thought of going to a Supercuts or the like makes my colon twist up.