Welcome To Ask Hairoline!
Oh wow I'm so excited you're here. You may already know me as your hairstylist, or friend, or person on the internet whose feed toggles wildly between global atrocities and whatever's going on with my cat and garden...very little hair content, turns out! Listen I have an old android phone and I'm busy at the salon, if I even remember to take a picture of some hair there is a 100% chance it's blurry. You know what's not blurry? My opinions!
When the pandemic began and I was still in LA I kept in close touch with clients through regular mass emails (I bcc'd, I'm not a monster) mostly for human connection and to figure out how to do their hair at home, but I'd also tell fun anecdotes and give podcast/tv/film recommendations and reviews, and that whole routine went on for a solid three years. I loved doing it and even folks whose hair I didn't do anymore for one reason or another asked to stay on the email list, which gave me a pretty big head about the quality of my newsletter writing. I miss that! So I'm here now to do a newsletter version of those primitive emails but to additionally answer an advice question each time, in the spirit of living up/down to the stereotype of the hairapist. If you've ever been in my chair I've probably given you at least very entertainingly questionable advice and now I'm aiming to expand the reach of my non-HIPAA-compliant guidance.
Submit advice questions here https://www.carolinemitgang.com/about or to my Instagram DMs @hair_o_line. Here's the first question I'm going to answer, submitted by an old college friend who once very generously let me blowdry her spectacularly curly hair in our dorm before I had any business doing that anywhere:
How and what do you actually want clients to share during consultations ("so what are we doing today?" ::panic::) because I overthink and vomit information and feel like I'm annoying them and burying the lede at best.
Here's the thing, info vomit shows me your essence. And I need your essence to do my job. That sounds like a creepy threat, because it is one. The threat is that, in my experience anyway, if I don't know what your whole deal generally is then you might leave with a style that's objectively good, but not you.
I've observed that there are two broad categories of stylists to go with two broad categories of clients: there's the stylist who screams I AM THE ARTIST AND YOU ARE MY BLOB OF CURRENTLY DISGUSTING LUMPY CLAY AND HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES AND WHATEVER IT COSTS AND WHATEVER IT LOOKS LIKE YOU WILL BEND TO MY WILL AND YOU WILL LIKE IT. And let me tell you there is a bottomless font of clients who gravitate toward that vibe, and in fact require it in order to trust their stylist. This category of client would not ask your question because their stylist barely asks them what they want in the first place. I appreciate that these wild characters exist because catering to their clients doesn't come naturally to me and also they tend to be very entertaining to have in a salon environment. Some of them are my dearest friends though I rarely ask them to do my hair, because I'm the other category of client when I'm in the chair.
That other category is the stylist who wants to collaborate on three major points: your budget/maintenance parameters, personal style, and self-styling abilities. (Btw if you don't like an Oxford comma feel free to leave now and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.) I'm 100% projecting with the way I conduct a consultation, because it's how I want a skilled service provider to address me and earn my trust. You may feel as though you're blabbing about everything but the specifics of the task at hand, but a good hairdresser is going to be able to glean valuable nuggets. For example, you come in with grown-out long layers intending to ask for a bob with bangs, but you go off on a tangent about the pickleball league you just joined because of a colleague in your doctoral program who plays to stay active while writing her dissertation. I love you for all of this, because the important questions for me to ask are illuminated like I'm Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code. Do you care about having sweaty bangs stuck to your forehead and not doing a high ponytail when you play? Between writing sessions, work, and dinking practice (I will never not tee hee hee at "dinking") are you going to come in for bang trims every 3-4 weeks? How much, if any, time and will do you have to actively style your hair? Once we nail all that down I can give you a cut that'll work with your life while talking to you about pickleball which is one of my preferred topics.
Ooooo you know what else is great, tell me what you don't like! Be negative! Once I told my therapist I felt like my gut reaction to most things most of the time was negativity, and with a devastating lack of hesitation she said, "that's a defensive posture, it's less vulnerable to be negative than to express pleasure, and it's also a by-product of you intellectualizing everything." OKAY REGINA GEORGE (not her real name) damn. While that may be true out in the wild and something I could tell you I'm working on but I'd be lying, within the sacred womb of my salon chair the negative is illuminating, edifying, protective. Articulating clearly what you do want can be a challenge, but I bet you can readily access what you definitely don't. You've had texture cut into your hair that didn't work when you styled it yourself, you've had a shade of red that made you look ill, you've shown a stylist a picture of a bob that's the same length as your current hair, telling her that you don't want to lose length you just want the shredded layers in the picture that would allow you to get some messy volume and she nods and says, "yes yes totally," and then proceeds to cut all your hair off into a tight pixie at which point, stunned, you smile and thank her and then go home and cry because you're 22 and too timid to speak up for yourself in the moment as you saw it happening and you realize that you're going to be growing this out until you're 24.
Wait sorry where am I who am I...oh right, we're being negative. Tell your stylist what you know you don't like! We can do so much with that, most crucially not That Thing.
Which brings me to the classic, "do whatever you want!" To which I say, "you don't mean that." I promise you mean that with caveats and parameters. They can be broad with plenty of room for a creative surprise, but give me something so I don't inadvertently ruin your life for 2 years, will you please? If we've known each other for a while and you serve me a "do whatever you want" I have knowledge of you I can use to throw out some wild new ideas so you can have a Jesus-take-the-wheel experience (in this scenario I am Jesus). But really this isn't about what I want, I mean it's your head my love. I am your hair mommy and want what's best for you once you leave my chair and fly free. And I uhhh want you to keep coming back.
Final consultation advice is to find inspo photos in which the person's hair is as close to your natural color and texture as possible. A picture is worth a thousand consultations, but if your hair is naturally dark with tight curls and you show me Michelle Williams in that 2013 Louis Vuitton ad campaign I'm going to have to diplomatically explain why I could give you her exact cut but it won't look *quite* the same.
Instagram is cool and all but the hair on there is often deceptive sorcery. Balayage looks completely different when it's styled with beach waves than when it air-dries, or is blown out smooth, or is done on very curly hair. My mom is my favorite #1 offender, showing me pics of styles achieved with an arsenal of hot tools and a cocktail of products, which I know she will not use. She texted me once, "I swear hairspray makes humans irritable. I am dead serious."
In conclusion, I've just surpassed 1,500 words to answer your question about word vomit YOU'RE WELCOME.
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