Bella's Beauty Adventures

I am 46 years old; one would think in all that time I might have gotten a clue about my hair, mais, au contraire mes amie. Let's review my brief history of hair in San Francisco, where we've lived for three years now.

Step one: Go to the most expensive salon; they've got to be good. Instead, I feel like a chick in one of those God awful, assembly-line chicken processing factories where they cutoff the beak, send the fuzzy little chick sliding down a stainless steel funnel to the conveyor belt where some lunatic in a paper jumpsuit, hair net, face mask and latex gloves clips the wings. At Yosh they tossed a smock at me, shoved me in a chair, slapped some dye on my head then ushered me to a back room crammed with old SF money: lots of laser treatments, botox and big gold jewelry. A lightening shampoo to wash out the color, then wham-o! Into the chair for a cut with a razor. People, they only use a razor when they are in a hurry, and on this assembly line it was "Get 'em in. Get 'em out. Ye-haw raw hide!"

Steps two and three: random salons around town recommended to me, but were mediocre, and left me looking either matronly or stupidly trendy -- think, Shag.

Step four: Hugh, the most gifted colorist who could not cut my hair to save his life, and he was a bit of diva. I think he told me once, "don't touch me!" OK, not a problem. I would have stuck with him for the exquisite blow-outs alone, then he charged me $125 for a color. I knew I had to break-up with him, which was traumatic, not just because I loved my Sandra Bullock movie-star-color, but I loved Ron, the owner of the salon. Bye, Ron.

Steps five, six and seven: no one is cutting my hair until the awful cut Hugh gave me grows out. I go to three more random salons that do a crap job with my color; Hugh is a hard act to follow. I feel depressed and consider returning to the Pixie cut of my youth: the one my mother forced me to have after our hippie cousin gave all the rest of the cousins head lice at one family reunion.

Step eight: I am two years older, and with more bad hair days than any woman my age deserves. Well, last night I tried a salon in my neighborhood, and today I look, for the first time in ages, pretty darn good. The color is nice, not too brassy or dark. The cut is cute, on the edge of too young for me, but not too much. I think -- dare I speak it out loud? -- I've found a keeper. And it only took three years!

Don't even ask me about how long it took me to find a decent dentist. People think moving to France or San Francisco is so glamorous. It's not. It takes enormous effort to reassemble your life. You have to find a bank, doctors, the post office, a place to live, schools... the list goes on an on. And frankly, it takes so freaking long to find a good stylist that I'm just not moving again, because I refuse to go to my grave with bad hair.