Year of Firsts: Finding a new hairdresser takes some cutting-edge techniques

Ann Landers used to say that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when life gives you a bad hair day, what do you make of it? I don’t know if she ever answered that question.
For more years than I can remember, I’ve had my hair cut, highlighted and styled by the same woman in a dozen different shops. Her name is Jill, and under the scissors, we don’t stop talking. We catch up on the previous six weeks, chortle over the dilemmas folks find themselves in and share our own personal predicaments.
Jill’s been through two divorces since we’ve been together, and I’ve had my own drama, and in the midst of our reveries, she does her magic so I can leave her shop looking — and feeling — worlds better than when I walked in.
Something changed in the past few months, though, when I moved to the coast. I couldn’t bring my favorite hairdresser with me!
I can still go to her, of course, but her shop is 82 miles away, along freeways that are not renowned for their beauty. Highway 17 may remind me of twisting, curling locks of hair, but Interstate 580 toward the Central Valley is straight as a board and dry as straw.
I’ve finally faced the fact that I am going to have to find someone else closer to home. But how?
Finding a hairdresser isn’t like finding a car wash — I can count on one hand the number of car washes in a 10-mile radius of my office on Scotts Valley Drive. And it’s not something I’d go to the impersonal Internet for referrals.
It’s a little like finding new friends, who seem to appear only fortuitously for me. Ori Seron, for instance, happened to be sitting at the last table with an empty seat at a September fundraiser for Mountain Community Resources, and she and I hit it off instantly.
Sure, I could take notes when I’m at the grocery store, stopping every woman I see who has great hair and asking, “Where did you get that done? I love it.”
Or I could run my finger down the phone book and try every hairdresser to see how I liked them. But isn’t that like trying out medications, one by one, to see if they work? You’ve got only one set of hair sitting so precariously atop your head, and it can’t be wise to mess with that antenna.
No, I think the best way to find a new hairdresser is the same way I found Jill: word of mouth. Does anyone know a good hairdresser they’d share with me, one who knows how to straighten curly hair, cover the gray and solve life’s problems in one 90-minute session? Is there someone I could trust here with my hair, and my life?
It’s time for an appointment!
• Year of Firsts is an occasional column by Cheri O’Neil Matthews, publisher of the Press-Banner, who recently moved to Scotts Valley. She’s a veteran journalist and an officer of the California Press Association. Reach her at [email protected] or 831-334-6300.