The Sassoon Experience

as told by Sarah Nicole Prickett

Ask anyone, from Agyness to Anja: short-short hair goes a long way toward making girls feel easy-chic. All you need to pull off this season’s coolest crop is passable bone structure and the confidence to show it off. Yep, forget the pile of plug-in tools and wastefully packaged products cluttering your sink (a swipe of your boyfriend’s pomade will suffice on messy mornings after.) With the right cut, you can wash, go—and stop traffic.

Of course, the right cut isn’t always as easy. So when Vidal Sasson asked if I wanted to come in for free styling, I hit ‘reply’ like it was a redheaded stepchild. Yes, please.

If Vidal Sassoon isn’t ringing a bell, knock knock: you need a hair history lesson. Until the '60s swung around, women were checking into salons on the weekly to maintain their stiff coiffures. Mr. Sassoon changed all that: his modernist style was based on geometric shapes, organic cutting techniques, and the brave new idea that women should be able to rock high style with low maintenance.

The hair innovator’s eponymous salon has 31 outposts, but only one is in Canada. Luckily for Sassoon-savvy Torontonians, it happens to be located at 37 Avenue Road, just north of Bloor.

The vibe is typically Yorkvillian—white walls, Euro-modern furniture and myriad reflective surfaces—but the reception staff is unsnooty. Upstairs in the hair salon, the stylists hum along to Cat Power while customers flip through old fashion rags. The clientele consists mostly of old faithfuls—surprising, considering Sassoon built its reputation on the edge. Are the cool kids still going to Coupe Bizarre for rude service and razor cuts? Ugh.

Before the hair do, it’s dye. I say hello to Tara, a Titian-tinted colourist with a quick smile. She tells me lots of women march over to the lighter side just in time for spring. But it's a decidedly wintery day, and besides, she thinks going darker will brighten my hazel-green eyes. I'm game. She custom-mixes a melted-chocolate brown and paints it on piece by piece as we talk trends. Brunette is back on the catwalk—even Jessica Stam, the most famous Canadian blonde since Pam Anderson, darkened her locks recently—and Tara says it's about returning to a more natural, lower maintenance look. It's about time. Hitting the bleach bottle is so last summer.

Hairdressers with experimental cuts make me nervous—if they think asymmetrical and acid-green is totally rad, what will they risk on me? Luckily, my stylist’s look is as cool as she seems (naturally black and full-on fringed) and I feel instantly at ease. I tell Karen to do whatever she can with my crop.

There are no shortcuts in shortcuts. If anything, because there is less to work with, each snip is magnified. It's all the more important that the shape be precise and perfect, especially if you want the cut to last ’til the next visit. (How many times is your new ’do totally done only a few days later?)

Karen says it’s all about the angles—that and something called pointing, which is what gives Sassoon styles those blunt, swingy edges. As she “points,” she runs down the rules: no razors, no thinning shears, just scissors; don’t cheat with styling tools; cut two-thirds wet, one-third dry. She tells me stylists have to apprentice at the salon for one and a half to three years to ensure they’ve mastered Sassoon’s “five-point cut” before putting it into practice.

It all sounds a bit like a cult, and I’m a born skeptic. Would anyone really notice if she cut three-quarters wet, or three in a sixth point? But when I see my hair take bold shape and texture under Karen’s deft fingers, I believe. From every precisely snipped angle, it’s perfection. And while my new hair is sharper than ever, it feels cashmere-soft (and, a week later, has stayed that way.) If Sassoon is a religion, consider me a convert.

Note to the not-yet-initiated: Vidal Sassoon cuts cost between $70 and $150, depending on your stylist’s level of expertise (pennies, really, compared to the five grand it cost to have Vidal Sassoon make a five-point pixie-cut icon of Mia Farrow in 1968). Students should book appointments Mondays through Thursdays to snag a 20% discount with student ID.