Every woman my age that I know who watches Friday Night Lights wants to be Tami Taylor, the mother character played by the incredible Connie Britton. Including me. So I sent some photos of her to one of this year’s Best of the Twin Cities winners, Mark DeBolt at Haus Salon, and told him I wanted to look like her.
His response? LOVELOVELOVE!
Well, OK then! His enthusiasm was contagious. I booked the appointment.
Things that I love about Haus, quickly: they take before-and-after photos so you can really get a good look at your transformation. And they keep them on file for the future when you can’t quite remember the color or cut. Brilliant. Stationside iPads mean you can skip those heinous hairstyle magazines and go straight to the internet for the look you lust after. (I also perused Lady Gaga’s shop at Barney’s while my color processed.)
Once I sat in the chair, Mark encouraged me to take Britton’s strawberry blonde locks a step further. My policy when I see a stylist—or any expert, for that matter—is to let them do their jobs. I’ve found that if I micromanage, or suggest something, I might not be taking into account my hair type or color or condition…or skin tone or face shape…there are a million variables. That’s what the stylist is there for. And since Mark was one of my Bests picks this year, I figured, I’d better follow my own advice, even if I wasn’t planning on being brilliantly scarlet when the idea began.
I purposely came in with unwashed hair (I hear stylists like it that way and color takes better) and I did not do anything with it before I came in. So … a true before photo—to prove I believe in the “before shot”—of yours truly:
And a few hours later (all-over dye, balayage, gloss), I came out looking like this:
I am beyond thrilled with the results. I emailed my photos to a friend who’s known me forever and she said that she can’t even remember what I looked like blonde. And a new acquaintance thought it was my natural color, bless her heart. My hair feels healthy and smooth, not at all damaged. I’ll be sticking to flame hair for a while. Mark is truly the patron saint to a special tribe of redheads here in the Twin Cities.
