Secrets from My Chair

By Mary Jo Lyle

Have you ever found yourself telling your stylist stories you wouldn't share with your closest friends? The power of touch and a sympathetic ear of your trusted colorist often lead to conversations typically heard by a psychologist with the added reward of beautiful color! Secrets From My Chair is a compilation of stories and secrets too delicious not to share told by clients as they sat for hours in the chair over a span of thirty-four years~ sharing laughter, tears and a few lessons along the way. Sometimes thoughtful, many times serious, but more often than not these stories were gritty, naughty and full of fun!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644246320

Book preview

Chapter 1

Funny Stories

Prior to graduating from beauty school, I worked part-time shampooing hair after school at a local styling salon. It was owned by two fellows that were related but different as night and day. One was quiet and never had one conversation with me, and the other barked orders and scared me to death. The music blared so loudly that I would answer the phone and tell the client, I can’t hear you ! They would respond by shouting, Well, turn the music down ! but I didn’t dare tell the mean owner, as he wanted a rock and roll salon. One day he told me to do a scalp treatment for an old man (who was probably thirty) and process him under the dryer. I had never seen a dryer extending from the ceiling, but I knew I’d figure it out. I was excited to do something besides shampoo hair and began to apply his treatment. He was busy reading, so I diligently went about my work when he stretched out the centerfold of the magazine… Playboy , right in my face just to see my reaction. I was nineteen and shy and slammed that dryer over his head and got out of the room. My mean boss came out of the room doubled over in laughter because I had put the dryer on the man’s head backward and his entire face was in it roasting. Thankfully, he thought it was funny and I still got paid.

The first color I ever did was done after one week of beauty school. We hadn’t even touched on the subject of color, so I knew zero when my then mother-in-law came in with a box of ash-blonde color and asked me to put it on her hair. She said she had used it before, so I thought, shoot, I can read directions, and agreed to do it—eager to please her and show her how talented I was. Later, after studying color basics, I learned that ash has a green base. Well, I studiously applied her color, processed it perfectly, and began to dry her hair. It was blonde, but I could see this undertone of lemon-lime that I kept trying to ignore, hoping it would get better as it dried. I finished her style and she didn’t seem to notice, so I thought we were okay and that’s how it was supposed to look. She took one step out of the room when someone said, Your hair is green. Crap. That was the first and last time she ever wanted me to color her hair.

Important note: My next mother-in-law, Sandra, was my favorite client who loved getting her hair done. It was a beautiful platinum blonde, and she liked it puffy and big. (The higher the hair, the closer to God!) She left us several years ago, and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of her big personality and loving nature.

The first full week on the job in 1977 stands out in my mind for this one incident…

In the mid-seventies, curly hair became popular again. Remember Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson? This was the era where we permed hair with little bitty rollers that required shampooing and picking out as maintenance. Not very attractive, but easy!

During my debut week I had a client who wanted curls but had nightmares of the ones her mom used to give her as a child. I remember getting those myself; the stench was so bad that everyone left the house and the windows remained open for days. Anyway, I proceeded to deliver the service to an openly frightened client who didn’t quite trust a twenty-year-old to have a clue. As I was the only employee that did chemical work, I was on my own, shaking in my boots that she would hate the results or realize she was my first paying perm client. It was lunchtime, so we two were alone when the stage came to rinse. I leaned her back in the sink, turned on the water… nothing. I turned the faucet handle every which way, no water. I later found out that the landlords had changed and mixed signals on the day to switch utilities. Let me just say, you need water to rinse chemicals out of the hair and there was no time to spare. I pretended to be calm and assertive while feeling lightheaded from fear. I grabbed her shaking hand and took her outside to the neighboring gas station. This was not your well-tended Chevron, rather a Red Ball station (which has since been demolished) with a huge German shepherd chained to the building. I typically am not afraid of dogs, but my client was a different story. The huge dog followed us with his eyes as we tiptoed past and ran into the nastiest outside bathroom you have ever seen. I shoved her head into the black smudged sink and rinsed for the required five minutes. The bad news is that we had to do this twice. Thank the Lord that her hair turned out beautifully or my career would have ended before it began. Of course, it was my first lesson in humility (with many more to come), as she told me for years following that I never gave her that good of a perm again.

Just when I am feeling more confident about my chemical abilities, I have a new client I will never forget. We will call him Frank. Frank was a robust, jolly sort of fella who wanted a curly perm. It was 9:00 a.m. and I dove right in, wrapping his hair with the little curlers. It was a tedious job, and an hour into the service he started getting a little fidgety. How long is this going to take? he nervously asked. Oh, about three hours start to finish, I said. He whirled around in the chair and said, I need to talk to you in the other room. And with that he jumped out of the chair with his half-wrapped head and cape flying as he dashed down the hall to the back room. Mary Jo, we have a problem, he said with a fresh bead of sweat forming on his face. I am an alcoholic. I have been up since 3:00 a.m. drinking to prepare myself for this appointment. There is no way I can sit for three hours without a drink. You have to find me something to drink or I will have to leave. What? A twenty-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears stylist was not prepared for this kind of challenge. What did I do? Exactly what years later I would have never done—I got him a six-pack from the neighboring Tote-Sum (little convenience stores no longer in existence), poured one at a time in a stadium cup, and proceeded to finish my work. He immediately calmed, but as with a lot of drinkers, started crying in his beer. Literally. He started telling me how his wife had left him (really?) and how he wanted her back. As tears ran down his face, the beer was going faster and he was getting louder.

What can I do? he asked. (I was thinking, uh, quit drinking?) I had been married two years and certainly not ready to give anyone advice. I just continued to work while he wiggled and cried and thought I would never finish. Well, we did finish and he was pleased. With that he got in his car and drove home. I am lucky nothing bad happened to him or anyone else on the road around him that day.

However, the day didn’t end there. I was an hour behind with the drama Frank had caused. My next client was a little lady who had an expression when she sat down in my chair of someone who had smelled something nasty. She was rightfully irritated from waiting, so I immediately went into suck up mode. Naturally, I couldn’t tell her what had happened, so I decided to give her the shampoo of her life to win her over. I lean her back into the shampoo bowl, jabbering and trying to be more charming than I felt, rinsing, massaging, rinsing again, when suddenly the hose I am holding slips from my wet hand and becomes the snake from hell, whipping around like it’s possessed while I am trying to grab it rather than turning the water off like a sane person. What was probably three seconds felt like an eternity when I turned the water off and surveyed the damage. I looked at her disgusted face, dripping with water. I am soaked, and her beautiful snakeskin (very exclusive in those days) purse, which was sitting on the floor directly underneath the sink, was full of water, with the hose resting on top. While writing this, I have to ask myself why I didn’t run out of the salon and never returned, but somehow I persevered. I blot her to damp-dry and take her to the styling chair to cut. By now I have to say I am just trying to survive. I make one last effort to win her over by giving her a great haircut, and while drying her hair I make conversation by saying, "You have a cowlick in the front, so