The stylist next to mine was sharing his appointment schedule for the day with my stylist.  “Oh – and I have two updos today.  I hate doing updos.”  Ah yes, the updo.  Popular during prom and wedding season. I’ve never had one myself, mainly because it wasn’t really a thing, at least that I knew of in high school and my hair was too short to do one  for my wedding.  Who knew that people planned for updos?  Like, I COULD have grown out my hair if I had known it was a thing, but I didn’t.

The one time I tried was for my sister-in-law’s wedding.  The day before I had my hair down in curls, dreaming of going in to the stylist the next day to do one of those loose, romantic, tendrils down the side of the face updos and what I got was a really tight, up against the head French braid.  It was awful.  It now lives in perpetuity in those wedding pictures.

My stylist laughs at me when I tell her how inept I am with my own hair, but it’s true.  Oh sure, I could throw it up in a ponytail or pigtails but to do something fancy, forget it.  To this day it terrifies me when one of my little girls comes up to me and says something like, can you fix my ponytail or put in my barrette or any variety of ways to fix their hair and I tend to send them to their teacher or my student teacher.  I’m that clueless.  Having had no sisters and raising three boys, my world consisted of buzz cuts and your traditional boy hair cut, parted on the side.

So today, when I knew that I was going to get to watch an updo, I was fascinated.  So here was this pretty little blond teenager with her make up professionally done sitting in the chair with her mother helping her explain what she wanted.  The conversation between mother and daughter was interesting because mom seemed to be doing all the talking and the daughter would say occasional words, but most of the time her head was down facing her phone.

The next thing I know is that there is a bright flash next to me and mom has this fancy professional looking camera, taking pictures of the girl to document the process.  Really? I seem to remember being in my room, wearing the baby blue eyeshadow and rolling my own hair with my little heated rollers.  Nobody took pictures until the professional at the prom.  My mom certainly wasn’t posing me throughout the process taking pictures.  It was a little on the scary side.  When the stylist was finished, he took mom and daughter to a back room to a blank wall where mom could get more pictures.  Maybe it’s because I had three boys, but it just seemed a bit excessive.

But back to the updo.  Here’s what I learned.  1.  Get as much curl and poof into the hair as possible.  This means everything from a skinny curling iron to the traditional tease towards the crown of the head.  2.  Get every bobby pin you can find.  3.  There is no exact science to an updo.  4.  Pull all hair into a messy almost ponytail at the nape of the neck, twirl it around a bit and start putting massive amounts of bobby pins in until it looks “right” (it’s a lot like making biscuits I think).  4.  Use enough hair spray that even if the bobby pins move, the hair won’t.

I watched the stylist’s hands literally shake throughout the process.  He really did hate doing updos.  Imagine the pressure.  The client comes in with a certain vision and they hope the professional can make the vision come to fruition.  The hairstyle can either make or break the occasion.  I had watched those same hands stay steady while cutting someone’s hair earlier, but something about this really made him nervous.  In the end however, the updo was apparently a success and everyone left with a smile on their face.

I hope this girl really enjoys her prom and that the memories she makes are more important than the preparation for it.  It’s a rite of passage I suppose.   Complete with an updo.