Cut loose

My hair stylist has retired. Or so his former salon claims. And no, I can't get over it.

People, this is a CRISIS. I have had SO MANY bad haircuts in my life. I didn't even know that my hair was really curly until I was sixteen years old. I only found my current stylist in 2005. I have had great hair for the past three years, and apparently became complacent, because yesterday? When I called the salon to make an appointment for a trim and was told that my stylist is no longer at that salon, and has retired from hair styling, I seriously almost burst into tears while on the phone.

Also, this seems very weird, because I was just there in May, and asked him if he'd be there in November to do wedding hair, and he said yes. And a month later, he was gone? It seems suspicious to me. Which is why I kind of think that the salon is lying about him being retired from styling hair entirely. He's 40 years old--who retires at that age? And he loved hair styling!

But the worst part is that I don't have his contact info! Desperate Googling turned up his last name and, subsequently, his home address, but not his phone number or email address, and no, I will not be making an unannounced visit to his home to beg him to make an exception for me. I suppose I could mail him a letter, but what I really want is to find out if this is for real, or if there's some sort of bad blood between him and that salon that has led them to be unwilling to send his former clients elsewhere.

You guys, it's not just me. My mother and sister go to this guy too. My mother, in fact, only gets her hair cut when she comes to DC. She won't even get a trim anywhere else. Seriously, she hasn't been here since last August? And so she hasn't had her hair cut since then. She was counting on having this stylist fix her hair for her when she came up for the wedding.

After the woman at the salon offered to give me an appointment with someone else, and I distraughtly refused and hung up, I called my mother to break the news, and her wail of despair caused my father to come running from the other room to find out who had died.

As further evidence of this man's greatness, allow me to present you with a brief photographic timeline of my hair:

Age 4 (at the top): natural corkscrews:


Age 15 (on the left): Frizzy, over-brushed non-curls:


Age 18: Excessively short quasi-fro:


Age 21: The way-too-long, shaggy dog look:


At present: Hair that I love, finally:




And now? Now I have been launched onto the mercies of Yelp, and can only hope that my fellow curly-haired DC residents are trustworthy. I'm going to call today to make an appointment with a highly-rated stylist, and cross my fingers that if she butchers it? Three months until the wedding will be enough time to grow it out.