I am a salon 'bouncer'. I have been bouncing all over the Tri-state area searching for someone who can cut my hair (a la Sally Hershberger's Jane Fonda cut) and give me natural light brown highlights that leave my hair shiny and healthy looking. I have paid top dollar (over $600 for cut and color) in top NYC salons and the average $300 here in Jersey and have gotten mostly average to downright criminal treatments. (criminal was the most recent top NYC $600 cut/color that left my hair streaky, frosty and fried). Over the years, I have tried just about every salon in Montclair but have eventually left them all, feeling like either a hair model being experimented on by an inexperienced stylist out of school or just another customer in the 'hair factory'. Some places felt cold and impersonal and others felt a little too friendly and unprofessional. You know, when the staff is talking about other customers in front of you, you know at some point they might be talking about you!! I don't need to be impressed by decor, the unique space, the coffee, the music, the attitude, the other chi chi customers. Just let me walk out of the salon feeling like I just got my money's worth and I don't want run home and 'redo' my do.
Feeling desperate and like I had lost all faith in the hair industry, I took the advice of my oldest friend who has been seeing Becky and Patty at Antonio Michael and before that St Ives for the longest time....possibly 15 years? Her hair always looks great, healthy and shiny. Becky colored my hair back in the day at St Ives and I always loved what she did then so I decided to try her at her new salon in Verona and all I can say is WOW! Becky really is the best colorist around in my opinion. There is no experimentation with her. She really just knows what she is doing. I wanted natural light brown hair with a little highlight and that is what I got.
My cut with Patty went equally as well. What I noticed about her is that she first gives you a traditional base cut and then funks it up with razor and other techniques which really gives your hair a professional look, body and style. Many stylists today do not do this, they just start texturizing without a base and the result is really messed up hair, and i mean messed up-- not in a good way.
What i like most about this place is that there is no clique, no attitude. It is like going to your sister's house, where everyone is comfortable talking to one another. Maybe your aunt is in the corner getting her nails done, your cousin is getting her hair blown out. Everybody feels like family here. There was something sort of Steel Magnolias about this place but I mean that in the nicest way....(nobody had 'dos' like Dolly, Shirley, or heaven forbid Julia's hideous do). It was just a friendly, homey feeling like we were stepping into Becky's actual home and she wanted us to feel welcome in a most natural, familial kind of way. Go there and you will see what I mean.
And by the way, I did NOT race home and redo my do......though I did spend quite a lot of time admiring myself in the mirror when i got home. read more
