the event

I'm a little nervous... this was taken right after the "before" photo. That's Antonio in the background. My friends start to arrive. It's actually turning into a party! Antonio begins cutting my hair while it's still dry. I have to sit in this space-aged steam helmet while the hair color does its thing. Ew. Goo. An event! I like the color! It's darker... Amy (the PR agent) and David (salon owner) listen while Antonio talks about the cut. Oooh, it's looking good! "Can you bring me more wine, please??" I sneak a peek while Antonio has my hair flipped over. Amy applies my makeup for the "after" photo. Ta-da!! My boyfriend likes it, too.

ray & i got to david's salon at 6pm, and amy (the pr agent) was preparing the wine & cheese. she was an L.A. fashionista (sarah later told me she was wearing a dior belt; i hadn't noticed) and i felt a little hick around her. she was nice, though, and she made us feel at ease.

we met antonio right away... he was so sweet! he's a celebrity stylist, but has no ego about it at all. he's very funny and personable and always seemed to have a sincere smile. i liked him immediately. i asked him whether he thought he'd cut my hair any shorter, and he said "actually, i think i'd let it grow out a little." that was kind of a relief.

because it seemed that there wouldn't be a lot of cutting, he & david talked about how to make a more dramatic difference in my hair style. david suggested he give me some color. that hadn't been part of the original plan (in fact, i'd been told that i would absolutely not get color as part of this hair makeover), but next thing i knew the two of them were poring over books of color samples.

(a big shout-out to david here... the color was a big courtesy on his part. antonio hadn't come prepared to do any color at all, so he used the supplies in david's salon... and david himself applied the color.)

amy then wanted to set up my "before" photo. she had me change into my purple blouse (she didn't like the pink polka-dots i was wearing) and sat me down and ordered me not to smile when she pointed the camera at me. (do you know how hard that is?? the whole event was making me nervous, the anticipation of it all, and giggling is my standard response to situations like that. i practically had to frown in order to keep myself from smiling. i'm sure i look miserable in the "before" photo.)

my friends started arriving a few minutes before 7. as it got later, amy kept looking at her watch and saying, "tell me when you think all of your friends are here." she was totally eager to get the event started.

i don't think i ever saw any press arrive, but i could be wrong about that. there were supposed to be 2 magazines there ("metro" and "carolina woman") as well as a couple of TV cameras. amy told me later that she got a call on her cell midway through the event... there had been a high-speed chase in town, so the cameras were otherwise occupied. oh well. :-)

after about 15-20 people had shown up we started the makeover. i think it must have been around 7:30 or so when we finally began. antonio sat me down and almost immediately began cutting my dry hair... and i immediately commented on that. he said with curly hair you want to make an initial cut while it's dry, letting the scissors cut with the each curl and not into each curl. he would pick up a ringlet and cut the length to the shape of the curl. it's hard to explain, but fun to watch.

this whole time i don't think more than a couple of my friends were really observing the makeover. there was too much wine & cheese to be had, i think, and there seemed to be an almost constant din of talking and laughter in the salon. david & a couple of his employees watched the whole process carefully, though, looking at this expert cut my hair. it almost seemed like a training session for them.

after the dry cut, david applied my color. i kept drinking wine. they then put me under this really weird steam helmet thing to get the color to absorb. while i was sitting under that thing, pinky came and talked to me but it was hard to hear her... everything was really echoey under there. i kept slouching down in the chair just so i could look under the rim of the helmet at her, but paula (one of the salon employees) reprimanded me. gently.

once the color was rinsed out antonio started shaping my wet hair. it was at about this point that i looked at myself in the mirror and i suddenly thought, "oh my... this is really happening to me!" it sounds weird, but i guess i had been running on a sort of auto-pilot up until then. celebrity stylists just don't fly in from NYC do my hair very often, and i think the shock of that reality had numbed me a little... i had sort of removed myself from fully grasping what was going on. it hit me halfway through the evening, though, and everything seemed very intense from then on. (in a good way... i felt kind of hyper-aware.)

or maybe it was just the wine.

after the shaping was done, antonio began styling my hair with the curl friends products. he took the time to tell me what each one was for, and as we chatted i learned that he loves classical music. we talked about his favorite composer, johannes brahms (and we even started singing part of the 3rd symphony together; too bad the salon was filled with so much noise that no one heard us) and he said he'd listen to my station online when he got back to new york.

he twisted my hair (a technique i've had done a couple of times) and he gently blew it dry (something he actually recommends against for curly hair), then with a couple of flips and some final touches he was done. it really looked amazing. soft waves of dark color. it felt wonderful.

then amy took me to the back room and applied a TON of makeup to my face in preparation for the "after" photo. i don't think i've ever worn so much makeup. i remember charlotte & deb being back there with us, and they were both totally slack-jawed at what was happening to me. deb looked incredulous... though i don't really know if it was in a "what the hell are they doing to her?" kind of way, or whether she just thought i looked particularly amazing. probably the former.

when i re-emerged into the salon, i think a few people said i looked like a star. i suppose stars are accustomed to feeling this pampered, though... and i'm not. it was an amazing, crazy experience.

then there was a small presentation when amy handed me another prize: a big gift basket full of curl friends products.

i had no trouble smiling for the "after" photo. then we took a picture or two with me & antonio (who also gave me his cell phone number and email address "in case i had any questions").

afterwards, a big group of us decided to go down to the wine bar for more booze. i invited amy & antonio, but it sounded like they had to catch a painfully early plane.

so about 8 of us walked down the street to the bar where deb (resident wine expert) picked out 2 incredibly good bottles of rosé. as we slurped them down we relived the evening's nuttiness. we then decided we were hungry and walked the 7 or 8 blocks to hector's, where we all got gooey cheesy burgers & fries. after that it was close to 1am, and we decided it was probably time to go home. there's only so much a gal can take in one night.

all in all, this was a wonderful experience. going into it, i was nervous... being the focus of all this attention is a little nerve-wracking. it was a HUGE comfort, though, having my friends around me (as well as antonio, who was fabulous).

so, if you'd like to see more, here's a 2:45 quicktime movie (17 MB) of the event. ray filmed some really fun moments and i edited a few of them together.

and there are even more photos, courtesy of sarah, ruby and lisa.