Dyeing for a Change

AP/Wide World Blonde ambition rules the runways

The scene, scored to a nearly contrapuntal rotation of disco hits, is really quite serene. The setting is so comfortable and relaxing and so sedate it seems very anachronistic and un-nineties. It almost has the feel of a bohemian artist's studio sometime in the sixties.

Ray compliments Montalbano's work: "She has a good idea for mixing colors."

"It's an art," Bebe adds.

Montalbano, who has been styling hair for about 12 years now and has appeared on MTV's Makeover Madness, is not your average hair stylist. And her customers are not your average citizens. She has colored Marilyn Manson's hair, and Trent Reznor used to be a steady client.

"I don't do a lot of natural," Montalbano explains. "People come to me because they want something very different, very wild."

For Montalbano, whose rocker-customers march to different drummers anyway, most of her customers sport hardcore colors — pink, blue, green, aubergine — and she sees a pretty much equal proportion of men to women.

Still, today's trends are much more liberating, and the old-schools-of-thought have been largely tossed aside for a literally brighter future, which is now.

AP/Wide World Madonna often reinvents herself with hair color

"Years ago, women would carry around their formula," recalls Licari who's been coloring hair for some 20 years. "And ... if they were going to another town or another colorist, they would say, here's my formula: 2 number 46, one half number 5-7."

Licari runs the anti-Heart Salon. While he too has a number of famous clients — Susan Sarandon, Ellen Barkin, Mira Sorvino, among them — he has many non-famous ones as well. And unlike the in-your-face styles of rock and roll, Licari tends toward the natural.

"Most of the time, we suggest more minimal changes," he says. "If you have dark brown hair, and you're trying to be Madonna-blonde, your hair will not be healthier after the coloring process. But if you stay within a few shades of your natural color, your hair will be fine."

Perhaps part of the change in hair-coloring trends has to do with the advances in science. Nowadays, coloring can actually be healthy for your hair.

"I think that if you do it correctly, your hair can wind up in at least as good shape as your natural hair — sometimes even better if it's done right," says Angelo.

He explains that "Framesi colors are formulated with vegetable oils and coconut fats and the developers are formulated with a polymer that makes a coat on your hair so when the whole thing is said and done, it's a really glossy, shiny finish. I mean, it's almost as if you had a deep conditioner in your hair."

All the stylists agree that the products have gotten better. And along with the confluence of a more accepting and more image-conscious society, hair coloring is a 90's way to spice up one's looks — a trend that could easily cross into the next millennium.

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