BY KELLEY ROSS
I want to send a message to all hairdressers, hair engineers, beauty operators, beauticians or whatever job title fits for today.
Put down your scissors and combs and rejoice in our profession.
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Kelley Ross |
I have been doing hair for a long time. Long enough to see styles go from afros to the current greasy, messy look. Long enough to encounter about every walk of life at all ages.
And the stories we hairdressers could tell.
Like when a non-English-speaking family came to have all their hair cut. I was cutting the daughter’s hair, which was half bleached and half dyed orange. I was almost done before I realized the girl had lice. Was that ever hard to explain to her parents.
There are many long hours on our feet, many cut fingers — mostly from wiggly children — to working Saturday after Saturday while family weddings and missed garage sales go on.
We shampoo and condition until our shoulders ache. We inhale our lunch and sometimes just don’t eat. We smile while this hair and that hair is not in its proper place, so says the client.
We slop dye, drop bleach on our shoes and go home feeling like a hair ball.
How do we get rid of clients we don’t want to do anymore?
Well, I have this infamous letter. It’s short, sweet and to the point. Boy, does it work. Clients have a choice not to come back to me. I should have the same choice.
There have been times when I have been so burned out that one more head of hair was about enough to send me over the edge.
Then the Sept. 11 disaster happened, and that set me to thinking — enough complaining, we hairdressers have it made.
No one tells me what time to go to work or lays me off (I lease a station). No one tells me what days I can and cannot have off.
I have wonderful job security, because hair always grows. Computers do not cut hair — a favorite saying of mine. I can take the most unruly head of hair and make it look beautiful.
I get to tell jokes, hear jokes, laugh and cry with my clients, who after so many years of loyalty become dear friends. You can also do hair almost anywhere. Have scissors, will travel.
What am I leading up to?
After 25 years of doing hair, I am truly grateful for the profession I picked. I will probably always do hair in one way or another.
I can always make money at it, as much or as little as I choose. How many people can say that about their work?
But mostly I want to say to all who are in the business, aren’t we lucky? Life is good for us. I am truly thankful.
Kelley Ross of Everett cuts hair at A Wild Hair in Lynnwood. A native of Washington state, she is married to an Everett firefighter, and they have four grown children.
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