Once when I was 19 and a penniless college student in NYC, I sat on a stage in front of two dozen aspiring hair stylists at the Redken Gallerie in midtown while an enthusiastic instructor sectioned my hair into tiny ponytails and wrapped each in foil until I looked like a rastafarian from outer space. The process took five hours and involved a lot of photos and touching of my hair by strangers. But it was free.
Since then I’ve spent many hours with hair stylist apprentices in a number of venues. I’ve waited in line on a Monday evening to get into the long layer class at Bumble and Bumble, where all the hair models walked out with the exact same, albeit trendy and usually decent, hair cut. I’ve sat in a Loreal lab along with the other “lab rats” who agreed to have the latest home-coloring kit tested on our strands. I had every inch of my hair highlighted to perfection in the most serene (now defunct) Charles Worthington salon in Soho – only to leave with 500 messages on my phone from my husband, wondering how I went in to get my hair colored at noon and still had not surfaced around dinner time…
These days I have a little more money in my pocket and a little less time to experiment with my hair. But frankly, I am still too cheap to pay full price for my hair. So, I have found the perfect solution at the Antonio Prieto Salon on 20th street. At Prieto, apprentices come at different levels and price points but they all have experience with hair. The process takes place in the salon, amid all the regular paying clients. You get to set a real appointment at a normal hour and the process might take a little longer than a normal day at a hairdresser’s, but I’ve never been there longer than three hours. Best of all, I leave feeling like I got the million $$ treatment and I paid under $200 for cut and highlights…
Tags: Antonio Prieto, apprentice program, Bumble and Bumble, cheap hair cut, model hair cut, Redken Gallerie