There's one big difference between a pageant hairstyle and a regular hairstyle.
With a pageant style, "You've got to think about where the crown is going to go," says Chris Martin, hairstylist to a former Miss America, the current Miss Florida and several other pageant queens and runners-up.
"You do her hair in a way it can be mushed down for the crown, but still look great. And you do a little teasing on top to anchor the pins," says Martin.
Other than that, a pageant contestant wants what every woman wants for her hair: a flattering, shiny, versatile style -- and no frizz.
"Pageant hair was never my focus. I just fell into it," says Martin, 38, owner of Copperhead Salon in Orlando.
Several years ago, the directors of Orlando's Miss City Beautiful pageant, who were longtime clients of Martin's, persuaded him to offer a hair makeover as a prize for the pageant winner. In 2003, the winner was Ericka Dunlap, who went on to win the Miss Florida title, then the Miss America crown.
For those pageants, her haircut, color and styles were all courtesy of Chris Martin...
BLISTER
By Billy Manes
And we’re just so busy. Busy, busy. Busy scissors, oh-oh, oh-oh.
“You’re a hairdresser on fire!” Taylor snips and swishes as we gather in anticipation of what might just be the best, most ridiculous night ever.
“No, you are!” I twist and pout.
Morrissey’s coif is holding asexual sonic court in my gracious drawing room as varying shades of my nearest and dearest unsolved follicular homicides pile their suedeheads into my pre-party fray, and I could almost swear that I’m not old and tired, and that washing this Vicodin down with that vodka isn’t self-medicating, but an actual good time. Choruses of “We’ve still got it,” (or worse, “She’s got it,” in droll Bananarama post-AIDS tones) while not clearly sung, are presently being applied generously, rinsed and repeated.
“We should probably go,” reason speaks through its grinding teeth from up on high. Yes, we should.
In the low-culture blender tonight are two split ends of disparate means: a hair salon grand opening and a lesbian auction benefit mess, both on the same ViMi block, so reason probably isn’t what I’m hearing at all. If one were to take the implications of these two situations, boil them down into a toxic liquid and huff the noxious fish-n-Ferragamo fumes, then one would certainly be eyeing an imminent expiration date and a rainbow flag–draped coffin.
“How much is a lesbian going for these days?” Taylor wanders the underground railroad with a pink whip in his hand. “Strong back, sturdy haunches? Can she hoe a row?”
Well, the expected hos with cornrows are apparently not the order of the day at our first destination, Copperhead Salon. Gelled out of a stereotypical hairdresser mutiny from longtime Thornton Park’s gold-plated gossip hall, The Wave, Copperhead’s already been open for a few months and boasts a carryover clientele that includes, well, me. Which means that at some point in the evening I’ll have to remind bitch-supreme Joel, my personal hairkiller, that when he’s speaking to me it isn’t polite to stare at the recession of my hairline…
Best Place For A Botox Party
Copperhead Salon
936 N. Mills Ave., 407-898-6636
www.copperheadsalon.com
Because sometimes a hot-glued weave foil-wrapped in globs of bleach isn’t enough humility to elicit the required “I’m still 30, dammit!” from your more superficial side, ViMi beauty newbie Copperhead Salon – itself something of a mutiny endpoint for the old Wave scissor set – occasionally raises the bar (and the brow) with little pricks of agelessness. Local Oriental medicine/aging expert Dr. Anthony Beck, of SaJune Medical Center and Spa, pops in now and again with his magic juice for a foray into wrinkle reduction. Think of it as a Tupperware party with less regret.
