Whether you're looking for a new fall style -- or simply frustrated with your hairdresser -- specialty salons offer services and products you won't find at your average shop.
And it's not just women who are turning to specialty salons: men often comprise as much as half of the clientele at these high-end places.
Increasingly, there are salons for any hair concern.
Want to grow your hair long?
The
Long Hair Care Group of Manhattan will coach you through the entire process, not stopping until your locks are as long as you want them.
Or, if you can't stand the wait, try the new
Paul Lebrecque hair extensions. Using "nylon micro integration," Lebrecque claims that for $2,500 he can make your hair longer or fuller -- and that the added hair will appear natural.
Other specialized treatments, such as ones for thinning hair, can be found at
Tina Cassaday's Beverly Hills, Calif., salon.
The Price of Beauty
Salon-owner Cassaday's unique scalp fitness treatments range from a relatively reasonable $350 to a hair-raising $1,500.
Cassaday, 49, a self-trained hair expert, will analyze your scalp and hair under a microscope. According to the stylist, many scalp and thinning-hair problems are related to a lack of blood flow; as she points out, "Blood is food for the hair."
If a client is unable to travel to Beverly Hills, Cassaday performs both scalp and hair analysis by mail and telephone.
However, what attracts many celebrity clients to Cassaday's salon are her signature fruit hair shakes (Tom Cruise is one dedicated fan) and her painstaking approach to hair color.
For $425, Cassaday will concoct a fresh shake, tailored to your particular hair type, that will condition your locks like never before.
And despite her $750 price tag for coloring, Cassaday has a diehard following: perhaps it's due to her technique, which utilizes a 20-color palette.
There Was a Girl, With a Curl
My own introduction to the world of specialty hair salons began at
Devachan.
Devachan Salons (there are two locations in Manhattan) are the brainchild of stylist and
The Curly Girl Handbook author Lorraine Massey.
Fired from a salon stylist position because she was pregnant, Massey began seeing clients at her fifth floor walk-up apartment when she was in her twenties and opened up Devachan 10 years ago.
On her dedication to curly hair, Massey says, "It's political. Stylists are not taught how to cut curly hair ... [The hair industry's] been in the dark ages. We haven't figured out curly hair."
Massey's drive to understand curls was personal: a bad haircut left her determined to find a better method.
Penelope Dane
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