Goodbye, Tired Braid

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I had my oiled dirty hair in a tired braid. I decided I had had enough and wanted to get my hair done before the official end of summer schedule at work. I wandered into this beautiful Chelsea salon, and a petite Asian lady greeted me. The place was empty. I asked her if they accepted walk-ins. She said they could see me in an hour. I booked my appointment and wandered around Chelsea Market furiously answering moronic work emails as they came in. 

When I returned to the salon, it felt different. It was brighter and louder. Ninety percent of the seats were taken. Everyone in there was dressed up in linens and silk. They all looked like influencers. The petite Asian receptionist was now masked. Her eyes smiled at me as I stood there in my shorts and t-shirt with a cute Asian cartoon bunny. I sat patiently, semi-wishing I was wearing a white crisp button down shirt. But who wears that to get hair color? I thought to myself. Apparently, these people. I watched a blonde woman’s perfect highlights tumble down her back, and I was startled when my stylist, Ms. N we will call her, appeared. She took my breath away. She was probably the most immaculately polished woman in all of Manhattan.

“Gabriela, how are you?” She said in her deep sultry raspy accented voice. She sounded like she had just smoked a pack of cigarettes, but not in a cough-up-your-lung way but in a chic, sensual way. Her voice was very alluring and dripped like honey. She spoke to me like she knew me.

I explained to her that I don’t dye my hair, but love a gloss. I had only gotten about three since my wedding. During my penultimate gloss, an idiot had glossed my hair dark, and my ends were still really dark. “My hair isn’t black,” I explained to her the way I used to explain to kids on the playground when I was a kid. 

Ms. N had perfect skin; her skin was super tan; darker than a cardboard box. Not a tan line or uneven splotch in sight. Her hair was curly and immaculate. No hint of frizz. She had bright gold bracelets that clinked on her wrists. She was thin and muscular and wearing a white tank top. But it looked— expensive. Like something they would sell on Goop for $500, you know? I looked up at her helplessly almost begging for her to teach me her ways. I probably looked like a high school student to her. Her nails were perfect. She started using her nails to part my hair and hold the ends up to the top of my head. She was nodding and humming. 

“Very dark. I can’t promise you I can restore your color, but we will try,” she said slowly with the musical cadence to her voice. 

“The ends of the hair are very porous. They take color differently,” Ms N explained. I told her that usually the gloss is slapped onto me uniformly, and I sit there while it soaks in. 

Ms. N cringed, and then, compassionately looked at me and said, “not good technique.” 

I had just met the woman, but I trusted her. She was so polished. Also, I was wearing the little cape. There was no escaping now. 

As she continued to part my dirty hair which revealed traces of my workaholism and work-week self-abandonment, I wanted to melt into the chair and disappear. She was kind, though. She would smile at me with her very overfilled lips (her only flaw, if you want to call it that), and her eyes would squint when she smiled revealing her shimmery eyeshadow. 

She sat me down in the washing station where the cold thick sink touched the back of my neck. In front of me was a wall of Oribe products packaged in their beautiful beige boxes. Ms. N asked me if my neck was ok, and said she was going to wash my hair twice with clarifying shampoo, focusing on the ends to wash out some of the old gloss. She would use her nails to part the hair, and the woman scrubbed hard. I was determined that no matter how this turned out, the woman had earned a good tip already at the wash step. Her bracelets clunk together as she scrubbed. The water she was using was cold. There was a lot of pulling, and I have a sensitive scalp (an hour with a ponytail makes my head hurt), so it was everything but relaxing— but beauty is pain, right?

She scrubbed both cycles, and then, lathered me up like a shampoo commercial. I had a helmet of foam. While my helmet foamed, the petite Asian woman rushed in with a package. Ms. N walked over and picked it up with her elbows and took it to a back room. During that time, I reflected back on those color lifters and how they can turn your hair a burnt orange and prayed none of that was happening on my sore head that had started to go numb.

When Ms. N returned, she got me cleaned up, and disappeared to mix the gloss. As she was mixing, another stylist erupted into dramatic laughter in the next room, and Ms. N dramatically mocked the laugh with her own loud laugh. This woman is off her rocker, I thought as I sat there composing from my mini heart attack. Ms. N continued to maniacally laugh for at least 30 more seconds. “So loud,” she said after rolling her eyes. I tried to not look like she had scared the hell out of me, and nodded and managed a forced smile. Different smells wandered in and out from hair dye to sprays to sweet smelling fragrances that reminded me of Paris in 2006.

Weirdly, even as I felt I was in good (immaculate) hands, I also hoped this experience was almost over. Ms. N roughly combed my hair out. At different intervals, she would hold my ends up to my scalp, sprinkling stuff onto my face. I also had water running down my back. I prayed in both instances it was clean water and that I didn’t have a sprinkle of gloss freckles or a brown line as long as the Nile down my back. She finished rinsing me, and then, she started blow drying my hair. By this point in time, I had no feeling in my scalp.

I found out she lives in Queens and has worked at the salon for 14 years. She loves the beach (which explains the solid and flawless tan). I asked her if she traveled or did something fun over the summer, and she said her job was fun. I nodded and thought, fair enough. Good for you. She asked me what I did. I told her I was an attorney. She seemed disinterested. I mean, given the state of my hair when I walked in, I can’t even blame her. I took zero offense when she steered the conversation elsewhere. I’d had enough of work by then, too.

In case you are wondering, my hair came out quite nicely. It wasn’t dark and giving Morticia Addams. It looked like my normal hair again. The blow dry left my hair a bit frizzy, but the hair was restored. Ms. N was very pleased. She continued to hold my ends up to the top of my head. She lathered me in Kerastase. By the end, we were both exhausted. I wove my way through Eighth and Seventh Avenue, trying to get to an express train that was, unbeknownst to me, out of service (they only tell you this once you have paid and entered the station, in true New York thievery).

I walked away with restored hair and the knowledge that fabulous people still exist in this City. (Shall we make bracelets that say “What Would Ms. N Do?”). With this new knowledge and experience, dripping in sweet smelling creams, it was time to take my brown hair back to Brooklyn. It was time to go to a place where I really relax, and it doesn’t matter what I wear— Jenny— my massage therapist. Bless that woman. (She is magical!!)