Tip Of The Day: Great places to get great hair, including how to get a FREE hair cut.
Tip For Tomorrow: Tomorrow’s post will be inappropriate for children under 18. And my dad. What $20 will get you at Fantasy Gifts. No, seriously. That’s tomorrow’s post.
Further Elucidation Of My Cheap Deal: So often in life we fantasize about having hair that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the hair actually growing on our heads. For example, my dream hair is long, thick, curly, and true blonde. Like Barbie, only with more waves and less plastic.
My reality hair is wavy-enough-to-be-annoying, dishwater brown, and fairly thin. At least it’s long(ish).
I finally let the curl fantasy go when I stopped torturing my hair with bad 80’s perms, but I still chase the blonde dream. Sometimes with disastrous results. I won’t bore you with details, but strawberry-blonde is NOT MY COLOR. I look like Bobo the Clown in drag. Also, never purchase hair color at a military base’s drug store. I’m just saying.
In order to achieve maximum blondeness with minimum ridiculousness, I now rely on my hair stylist to set me straight (See what I did there? Straight, as in no curl? HAH). For the last 5 years or so, she has done the following to my head:
- Partial foil on the top and sides of my hair, in a nice blonde color with NO HINT OF RED.
- Long layers on the sides to increase body and movement. Of my hair, not me.
- Soft bangs, to hide my ginormous forehead.
Clearly, this kind of work costs more than $20 a session. However, I did say in my very first post that one exception to the $20 rule was my hair, so hey! I’m off the hook!
Though my style costs more than $20, I’m still frugal about what I pay to have it done. My stylist, Lynn at Styles on Boone in Crystal, only charges $25 per hair cut. Which, given the amount of training and education she has completed, it’s like my hair cut is FREE.
If you want a great cut done by a great stylist, I strongly recommend Lynn. Just don’t bogart her time – I need my hair done, too. And I saw her first, so DIBS.
If you’d like to keep your hair expenditures below $20, but still want that salon experience, the Aveda Institute can hook you right up. A cut and blow dry costs only $14 – and they throw in nice freebies like back massages while you wait. Lovely.
What about a FREE hair cut? Doesn’t that sound like a good plan? Well, if you are willing to grow out your hair an extra 8 to 10 inches, you can get a free ‘do. How? By donating your hair.
Locks for Love and Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths are two fantastic hair donation programs. You send in your shorn ponytail, and they turn them into hair pieces for kids sans locks.
If your local salon can cut off an 8 inch ponytail (Pantene) or a 10 inch ponytail (Locks for Love), they may, and should, do the cut for free. Be sure to check your place first before you go, to insure they support one or both organizations.
My friend Larue got her 9 ½ inch ponytail cut off on Friday for Pantene’s program. She went to the Great Clips in Richfield and the cut was FREE. Thank you, Great Clips!
Someday soon, some lucky kid will get her gorgeous, thick red hair and they will look FABULOUS. Also, Larue’s new bob looks too cool – very Velma Kelly ala Chicago.
Where To Go:
Aveda Institute,
Locks for Love, http://www.locksoflove.org/
Patene’s Beautiful Lengths, http://www.beautifullengths.com/en_US/makethecut.jsp
Styles on Boone, (763) 533-5131
MORE CHEAP MEDIA: If you’re bored tonight, and not too tired of seeing my face, you can check me out on Kare-11 Extra at 10 PM. However, if you are sick to death of my shameless self-promotion, I am sorry. And I promise, that’s my last scheduled TV appearance – for now.
8 Comments
Heh. Military base hair coloring. Must. Resist. Joking. About. Skunk. Stripe. Nice to have a hair colorist/stylist in the family, though, eh?I do feel rather Velma Kelly-ish. Like I might just break out into a Jazz routine ANYWHERE. Watch out doctor's office! Hold back Byerly's! PTA meeting, HERE I COME WITH MY JAZZ HANDS!!!Whew. I think that's out of my system. Topic? If you volunteer at a local hair styling school to be a test model, you can often get services for free. I have been a facial model, nails model and basic hair cut model. The supervisors check you before you leave so you don't leave with anything uneven. Like your face.And incidentally? Your hair looks better without the 80's perms. I'm just sayin'.
I just saw you on KARE 11. Good luck with your quest. I could never last as long as you have (the not spending over $20 thing). Hopefully you'll turn this into a book when it's over. It should be a great read.
Another inexpensive place to get cut and color is Master Cuts. I get my 7 foil highlights and it never costs more than $26.00 and I always get compliments. A regular haircut $14.95 and my maintenance bang cut $5. Plus, they're owned by Regis, so if you're spending $50on your hair you're spending too much.
I applaud your committment. I am not sure if you are trying to save money or not. I'm guessing that you simply want to find cheap stuff. Please remember that you get what you pay for. I work in product development for a consumer products company and have watched the plummeting decline of quality in the past 15 years. People blame the retailers but it's actually the demand for cheaper and cheaper product. People want dirt cheap product and we turn to China for production and inferior raw materials. As a person in the business of responding to consumer demands I am sick of it. My suggestion: purchase fewer, quality items and think of all the good that you can do for your checkbook, the environment and your frustration level when your cheap items break or wear out!
I just saw you on KARE11 so I thought I'd check out your blog. Interesting concept. I admire cheap as long as it doesn't "look" cheap. Good luck!
I also saw you on Kare11 and thought I'd check out your blog. Hoping I can find some great tips here.
You can call Cole's salon and when they have hired new hires they go through a training period and from time to time they are looking for models and they do cuts for free then just a tip so really inexpensive. They are supervised so the cuts turn out good.
Have you ever checked out Ragstock? Many twin cities locations- cheap, cute clothes and accessories…new and used clothing. You should check it out!
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