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| No Holds Barred — All About The Hair By Blair Sabol Recently Hilary Clinton admitted, "It always comes back to the hair ... no matter what I do." She was talking about people criticizing her over the years with her various hairstyles. It started when she looked impeccable during her 2008 Presidential Campaign, to how awful she appeared as Secretary of State in 2010 with her hair held back in ponytails, scrunchies, and headbands. “I do not travel with a hairdresser or anybody to help me do my hair. And I'm not very competent myself ... which should be obvious to everyone. At some point it's just not something that deserves a whole lot of my time and attention. If others want to worry about it — I'll let them do the worrying for a change." |
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| Well, I honor her honesty but com’on: HAIR MATTERS! People were impressed by her incredible daily styling in 2008. Rumor has it she spent over a million dollars for a hair, makeup and clothing stylist. It went far. Personally she got my superficial vote just by showing up at all those 5 a.m. "meet and greets" looking so blow-dried and perfectly airbrushed. A different pantsuit for every stop. She got MAJOR points for her sensational presentation. Then she started private jetting to 112 countries in a year as Secretary of State and it all went quickly down hill. It had to. Maybe she was too "broke" to retrieve that styling entourage she once had. |
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| Now, whether the recent "Hilary fatigue" is about her hair or her book overexposure is hard to say, but no one should underestimate the power of hair. I think you can bypass all plastic surgery, Botox injections, and dental veneers if your hair looks great. And nowadays, we have the extra problem of aging with all the thinning and going grey decisions. Haircuts and hairstyling are crucial, but hair color rules!! I've always been fascinated by the fashion headliners like model Carmen (known for her cheekbones and white hair), and recently popular stylist Linda Rodin, or even Vogue editor Polly Mellen. These are NOT "grey panthers” but "white lights." Nobody wants to go “mouseback grey” — we would all prefer to become platinum (but not necessarily as in "Marilyn blonde"). |
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| In Linda Rodin's case, she said she turned "silver" at 35 and "never looked back." Carmen seems to have been the gray "lightness of being" her whole life. Even notorious editor/model China Machado was known for her unique giant white streak amidst her black shoulder length mass. Liz Taylor went for a "salt and pepper" buzz cut briefly when she was diagnosed with a brain disease. But she doesn't count because she also went bald and looked sensational. Cher did a "skunk wig" (black and white striped) years ago for her "biker chick" tour, but now her drag queen followers are doing that while she has moved onto pink Muppet-looking wigs for fun and games. Raquel Welch makes a fortune in the wig business but few of her designs are actually grey ... only white. |
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| Recently my friend Ali MacGraw decided to bravely grow out her famous dark brown/black "Love Story" locks to ... lo and behold ... white! "I got sick of getting that white chalk line around my forehead every seven days and using every chemical, mascara and coverup power," she admits. "It was more about becoming authentic than holding up the same old image.” She now lives in Santa Fe "where all the women I see here look sensational at 80 with their natural hair and bodies. It inspired me to do it." |
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| Ali reminded me that her life is "not about hairdos at 75. This is what I look like. But I want it to look right, not sloppy, and appropriate. Sometimes the world is a little too dismissive of anyone looking older than 28." (The bigger problem is most people don't know HOW to look over 60.) Ali and Ryan O'Neal just did an videoed interview for the Hollywood Reporter’s "100 Greatest Movies" — Love Story being high on that list. Naturally she looked terrific in her white kurta top, white jeans, matching hair, and silver jewelry. O'Neal looked ruggedly stretched from stress and life. Neither one looked like a Viagra ad. |
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| Both Ali and Linda Rodin feel white hair looks best in a twist or "a ponytail with a little dark left in," says Rodin. "Actually, white hair looks best with darker skin and in my case I need a flashy pink lipstick and big glasses." Rodin's trademarks are Nars’ Schiap pink lipstick and Karen Walker huge frames. Lucky for Ali she still has her dark eyebrows, brown eyes, and great "natural " jawline. Mammy Yokum, she aint! On the opposite end to all this "white chic" is Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen, who is fighting financial bubbles daily with a white "Buster Brown" bowl cut. |
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| All this "going grey" (or white, sliver) got me thinking about people like Diana Vreeland or currently even Gloria Vanderbilt (whose son Anderson Cooper must have been white-haired in the womb). What if either one of these dynamos went from black to white. Would the public and their admirers turn disappointed or yell "bravo." It takes guts to "let it go" — but it's an art not to let IT ALL GO. |
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| Now, let's look at the guys. Bill Clinton put salt and pepper on the map. Does anyone even care that Obama is showing signs of natural frosting. Meanwhile, I refuse to believe that Robert Redford is really still strawberry blonde at 78. But he must be or WE WANT him to be ... so there! |
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| I remember one afternoon sitting between GovenatorArnoldSchwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone at my Beverly Hills colorist Jeffrey Serra's booth at Giuseppe Franco. Arnold was getting his "weekly" caramelizing touch-up (he started to resemble former NY talk show host Joe Franklin's bizarre brass "copperhead"). Meanwhile, Stallone was getting his usual shoe polish black applied to his plugged and receding hairline. They both left arm and arm happy to be dyed-in-the-wool pals. It was a sight to see — but I am not sure of what! |
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All this hair wear and depletion made me wonder what famed trichologist (hair treatment) Philip Kingsley must be thinking lately. I thought about him since so many of us with bleached out, thinning and overall fried heads went to him religiously 30 years ago, and many still do.
Kingsley has "massaged, applicated, and heat capped" EVERYONE ... and I mean everyone. Recently he has stepped up his treatment plans to complete with today's hair issues. He now offers an innovative, new three-step DIY Trichotherapy regime with spray, serum, and pills to get over our environmentally ruined heads. My money is on him to this day, and if all else fails you can still get "hands on" Kingsley at his 16 East 52nd Street salon in New York or 54 Green Street in London’s Mayfair. |
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Obviously, white isn't the only way to age. My "color correctionist" Alexis Unno at Garren Salon in New York says we should "all lighten up as we get older — but you have to be a unique TYPE to go totally white," she cautions. So blondes still rule. But there are blondes and there are BLONDES. Blonding is still hard to have and to hold. For instance, every female news anchor today is a blonde with "Brazilian Processed" long extensions. It's a look everywhere, and a fashion friend-in-the-know told me it is an influence from the porn industry (what isn't?). It seems that all the Asian and Central Europe porn stars have "swingy" long poker-straight hair. So goes the Fox News Anchorettes.
Talk about THE American "emblems" of blonde. (It seems America "owns" the color blonde while Parisians always been about brunettes ... go figure). I spotlight these sisters because I remember growing up and studying their society-pictured cascading double layers of blondness and class. There was nothing like this before. They seemed to have taught us all how it's done. This was not about Anita Ekberg and Jayne Mansfield or even Doris Day. The Ford sisters brought blonde into the winners’ circle on a new level. I saw a recent picture of them, and they still have "it.” Unlike Hillary Clinton, the Ford gals probably always knew "it's about the hair" (amongst plenty of other things) and still do! I say let's go back and learn from the tried and true. Long may the Ford manes reign! |
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