Bad Hair & House Rules

We have a few house rules in Casa de Mocha y El Cuban. One of them is that when I leave the house to get my hair done (cut, color, deep conditioning, etc…) it is required that The Cuban comment on it with a “Nice hair” or a “You look pretty” or even a “That is a good cut for you” but that didn’t happen last night.

I’ll let you off the hook early on this post. It’s going to be about hair and a bad hair experience so the three men who read me regularly can go check out something else today unless you’d delight in seeing me without makeup (in which case, scroll quickly, be frightened, and then go see something pretty like a field of tulips). It’s also going to be about my decidedly ethnic hair so those of you who know the feeling of using a comb or brush in the middle of the day to smooth out your hair can also ignore me and I won’t get my feelings hurt by that. I just don’t know what it’s like to comb my hair once it’s dry. Because once it’s dry, you ain’t gettin’ a thing through it.

That leaves, what, two of you?

I needed to get that out early in case I bored you to tears with what happened when I foolishly gave in and went to a free salon event last night at Ulta, a discount beauty retailer that opened a few months ago in my town. Both times I’ve stopped in the store randomly I have been disappointed by their coupons for 10% off because it ALWAYS excludes the products I want to buy from them and I find it easier, cheaper, and more convenient to just buy them online. At first, I was excited about trying out their salon and curly hair products because it was free. Who doesn’t like free? The Rockefellers, that’s who. I am no Rockefeller.

Normally, when I’ve been asked to review a product I go in with no expectations so that I can give an honest account of my experience. Except, this time no one has asked me to review it. Ulta is not paying me or giving me free products other than the free service of a wash and style that I made the appointment for so I feel pretty confident in saying that, without any exaggeration, it was a horrible incident.

I’m not saying that just because my hair looked like total crap.

The raised eyebrow should alert you that this is wrong. This hair is just so wrong. Where is the shape? What’s with the rogue curl? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? Is this a “style”?

My hair looks better on days when I’ve done it myself, slept on it, shoved it up in a baseball cap and then had a squirrel root around for a place to hide a nut. This was a total mess.

The one curl looks okay, but then there is this other one swiping across my face. Then there is this “bunch” in the back that looks pretty bad but I couldn’t get a picture of it.

Let me recount the series of unfortunate events (with apologies to Lemony Snicket):

1. I arrived at 7:01 for a 7:00 appointment and stood around the counter waiting for someone to assist me. I milled around for 5 or so minutes, went off to look at products, and came back to the counter and no one helped me. Even the manager passed by me twice as she helped other people and didn’t stop to check me in or ask my name so she could ensure that I was checked into their computer system. I sat down to read the magazines and waited until 7:21pm for someone to acknowledge me.

2. Kayla did my hair and sat me at the washing bowl where she forgot to put a cape on me while shampooing my hair. Poorly. She wasn’t very gentle, but that’s okay I suppose. Maybe that’s her style. It’s not like she rushed because another customer was waiting. In fact, she was working on a customer right before me and she apologized for being so late (which was fine, I just wanted someone to pay attention to the fact that I was there and waiting and let me know how long it might be) but then she proceeded to tell me about her bad day and a difficult customer who wanted color on her hair and how she was so pissed off about it. This was ENTIRELY UNPROFESSIONAL. She didn’t know me and she puked her bad day out and that started the noise pollution coming out of her mouth. The entire time only one other woman was getting her hair done in the salon area. I don’t expect every stylist to be awesome at shampooing my hair, but I did have to take off my glasses due to the water splashes. Let’s revisit: I did not have on a protective cape for my clothes.

3. When I got up from getting my hair washed, Kayla said, “Oh! I forgot to put a cape on you!” and then put one on me. After my shampoo was over.

4. She didn’t ask me any questions about my hair or my routines or products I use. She put me in her styling chair and started combing through my wet curls and told me what products she would be using on me. There were three of them and Kayla explained when she would be using each of them and that during the styling she would be using a diffuser on my hair.

5. Rather bluntly, she blurted out, “Are you mixed?”

Yeah. Let’s just pause here for a moment to remind people not to be entirely ignorant or insensitive to a total stranger. At this point, I was fairly irritated but decided to take let her just treat me the way she would any customer because I was more than positive that I would never be one.

I can’t even move on to number 6 yet because then she trumped herself to say something even more ignorant to me.

“Well, at least you have a reason for your hair. I don’t even know where my curly hair came from!”

[At this point, I had my glasses back on my face so I took them off, shut my eyes tightly, and pinched the bridge of my nose because, bad shampoo job and 20 minute unattended wait time not included, her ridiculous comments were completely over the line and I had to count to ten in my head so I wouldn't completely go off on her. If you know me at all or have read me for any length of time I think you know where this could have gone.]

I have a reason. For my hair. A reason. As if it requires an explanation that is satisfied when my race or ethnicity is brought into the conversation. As if my hair cannot possibly be understood and that scientists have spent all this time studying the universe to come up with a reasonable explanation.

Oooooohhhhhh, I see. You must have black in you. That explains it.

6. I don’t need a number six. One through five are enough.

6b. I shouldn’t lay all the blame at the feet of the manager or Kayla. She finished my hair (see above) (see also: shield your eyes from what you see above) and then showed me where I could find the products in the store if I liked them. She used three Tigi Catwalk Curlesque products on me:

Curlesque Leave-In Conditioner (yes! curly girls all need a leave-in conditioner!)

Curlesque Lightweight Mousse (even though they had a “Strong” mousse, she used lightweight on me)

Curlesque Defining Serum (I can’t even tell if this is a good product because I don’t think enough was used on my thick hair)

But when Kayla showed me the products, she picked up the Curlesque Curls Rock Amplifier cream and said, “I don’t know why they didn’t give this to us in the kits we’re using for the free event because this would have been PERFECT for your hair type.”

“What? This would work on my curls?”

“Yeah, it’s just that it’s the hottest seller in this line. That’s why there’s only one left on the shelf. It sells fast.”

Okay, Ulta. That was just a foolish move on your part to leave out the ONE PRODUCT that would have worked to smooth out my curls and made my hair look better. My locks don’t normally require amplification as stated by the product name but since it’s cream based I can only surmise that Kayla was right on this issue. It would have given me much needed moisture but instead my hair felt a dry and thirsty.

The only redeeming part of this escapade is that when I got into the car to drive home the radio was playing Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and that always puts me in a better mood. It’s the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat of it all.

When I walked through the door after all this, The Cuban said, “I hope you don’t expect me to tell you that your hair looks good, honey.” and, for once, he wasn’t compelled to follow the House Rules.

You know me. I have to both reward you for reading about my encounter AND do my part as a responsible and awesome blogger and offer you more than just my hair misery. Especially one of those three men who read me and didn’t heed my warning. Congratulations for making it to the end of the story!

What’s your favorite hair product? I’ll buy it for you. Do you have a favorite line of hair products? I’ll buy that, too. Leave a comment telling me what you like and I will ship it off to you once I’ve chosen a winner. Contest stays open until Friday at midnight.

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No one is sponsoring this post. Well, me. I am sponsoring this post. This is coming out of my pocket and I will not be giving my money to Ulta in the process so I hope you pick something I can find locally or online and then you’ll have wonderfully amazing hair. No one is excluded, not even Canadians. Or Tanzanians. I’m equal opportunity here at Mocha Momma. Because, you know…I’m mixed and that’s how we do.