Getting it straight at blow-dry camp
On a recent Sunday morning, four women gathered in a fresh white 1950s Mediterranean-style building in West Hollywood. They were a diverse group -- an orthodontist, a teacher, a TV writer and a Brentwood homemaker. Each had paid $200 to be there and all for the same reason: They wanted to learn how to blow-dry their hair.
For the last two months, Muriel Mastey, hairstylist and owner of Point de Vue Salon, has run what she calls “Hair Bootcamp”: a two-hour, two-bill blow-drying course for the hair novice. Every other Sunday, Mastey helps deconstruct the basics of a good blow-dry for a group of four to seven women so that they can learn how best to style their hair. “I’ve been talking about doing this course for years,” she said. “Every time I do my own blow-dry, I think, ‘I could teach this.’ Now it feels like a mission.”
Dressed this morning in a yellow print blouse and khaki carpenter pants, Mastey had the women find seats, and then she laid out the ground rules. “Nobody is a better student than another,” she said. “We know you do things at home that you have to unlearn. We are going to ask you to forget everything you know.”
Then she went around the room and asked each woman to describe what she hoped to get out of the course. Dunia Gailani, 30, wanted to learn how to give her chemically straightened hair more volume. Aubrilyn Reeder, 30, wanted to learn “different ways to make my hair go” after a recent haircut left her hair acting curly for the first time in 15 years. Joan Tampkin, 62, already could give herself a pretty good blow-dry but was interested in improving. And Lori, a television writer who declined to give her last name (“I don’t want my friends to know how much I paid for this!” she said) was tired of getting her bushy curls professionally blown dry every time she went to a wedding. She wanted to learn to do it herself.
Next, Mastey asked the women to bring out the products they were using at home so she could see what they were working with. When someone signs up for Hair Bootcamp she is told to have her hair done in her usual style and to bring a bag of what she uses at home so that Mastey can tell her whether she considers it a quality product or not. Both Gailani and Reeder used the high-end Kerastase line of products of which Mastey approved (she sells the pricey items at the salon). Lori’s drugstore Frizz-Ease Secret Weapon made the cut although Mastey also recommended she use some mousse to scrunch up her roots on days when she wants to wear her hair curly. Tampkin, however, who brought five brushes and nine hair products, had both the orange and the green lines of Kerastase, a situation of which Mastey did not approve.
“One line is moisture and one line is protein; if you use both, neither one can do what it is supposed to do,” she said. Then she turned and addressed the class. “You have to have your hairdresser educate you on how to use the products you buy.”
It was almost time to learn how to blow-dry, but first Mastey wanted her students to understand basic blow-drying movements. She stood in the center of the room, her two black-clad teaching assistants two steps behind and on either side of her. “Bring your right hand up,” she said, making a fist and holding it in front of her face. Her assistants mimicked the movements, making the trio look like instructors on an aerobics video. The class followed. “That’s your brush. Now bring your left hand a little above it,” she said, raising her left fist. “That’s your dryer.”
With her assistants and the class copying her two-fisted movements, she demonstrated the routine of a solid blow-dry. She started at the front, both hands moving down the front of her face. “Remember synchronicity,” she said. Then she demonstrated the action for the left and right sides of the head. The back was a little tricky. It involved tilting the neck and lifting from the waist. “All this has to move,” said Mastey, pointing to her ribs. “You really have to feel it go up.”
At last it was time to take brushes in hand and turn on the blow-dryers. Each assistant supervised a pair of women, while Mastey wandered around giving pointers and occasionally yelling directions to the group over the roar of four blow-dryers. “We put the brush underneath the hair and turn and turn and turn .... Remember to tilt the dryer, if you get the tilt you get the blow-dry ....If you lift and roll you will get volume ....Synchronization is key.”
Gailani, who before having her curly hair chemically straightened had spent years blow-drying it every morning, had the easiest time, but Lori, who said she never spent more than 20 minutes on her hair in her life, was struggling. “I don’t think I’ve ever worked my forearms so much,” she said.
Mastey walked over to her and rubbed Lori’s hunched shoulders. “We need to be more relaxed when we do our movements,” she said, turning to the whole class. “The more tense you are, the more you will feel your hair is the enemy and the harder it is going to be. Relax into it. If you fight it you will be exhausted after three strands.”
At the end of the two hours, the four women, each with hair shinier and bouncier than before, listened as Mastey gave her final lecture.
“Here’s the concept of hair,” she said. “It is not a textile, it will not always fall the same way. We cannot get attached to how it looks when we arrange it in the mirror. Run your fingers through it. It doesn’t need to be stiff or one particular way. A good blow-dry is enough.”
