By Gina Angostura
Columnist

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Why is it easier to break up with a man than to stop seeing a hairdresser?

The other day I was talking to a friend who recently stopped going to the hairdresser she’s seen for years. This girl did my friend’s nails weekly, even did her hair for her wedding. She’s simply decided to go to someone new, someone a little less pricey. Nothing wrong with that, right? It’s a free country. So why then, when my friend saw the hairdresser come out of a restaurant she and her husband were entering, did she shove her husband to the ground behind a car and crouch there, cowering, until the girl got in her car and drove off? Her husband is still picking gravel out of his knees.

I mean, if it were an old boyfriend, she’d have no trouble facing him. Even if she’d broken his heart, or he hers, she’d be big about it and say hello. Having a new husband on her arm and a huge rock on her fi nger would help in that situation, of course.

So why the angst over a hairdresser? I expect it’s because hairdressers wield great power over women. A stylist is the Great Determiner of Beauty. She holds the key to a woman’s self-esteem in many ways. As Vidal Sassoon said, if you don’t look good, we don’t look good. Or we had a hangover that day.

I know it’s true that I spend probably as much money on my hair as any other single budget item. Between haircuts, coloring, highlights, treatments, shampoo, conditioner, deep conditioner, double secret deep conditioner, leave-in conditioner, gel, mousse, glossing drops, fi nishing spray and midday hair rejuvenating creme (now with real gold shavings!), it adds up to quite a chunk of change. If I shaved my head, I could donate all that money to a third-world country for its hair product needs. Of course, if I did that, I’d have to invest in a supply of Pantene Head Shiner and special silk buffi ng cloths. It never ends.

I still don’t understand why haircuts vary so widely in price. You can get a haircut at a barbershop for $15, or go to a place in the city and spend $200 or more. What, do the expensive ones use golden scissors? Do they hold them at a special angle they only teach at the better beauty schools? Are they like Michaelangelo, carving away everything that isn’t beautiful, revealing the perfectly sculpted hairdo that only the artist can see?

I’ve had good cuts and bad cuts, and price isn’t always the difference. And isn’t it true, girls, that even the same hairdresser can’t seem to recreate a good cut from visit to visit? What’s the deal with that?

A woman’s hair is the symbol of her femininity. Her crowning glory, as they say. It’s why 80-year-old women, whom you’d think would be past the vanity of youth, still get perms and refuse to show their gray. I have no idea what color my hair is underneath my lovely blonde highlights, and I don’t care to know. If I drop dead tomorrow, someone better make sure my roots are touched up. I don’t want people pausing at my casket saying, “She looks so natural. Except for that hair. Defi nitely a dye job.”

The quest for the perfect hair is like the quest for the Holy Grail. Women seek it throughout their lives, sacrifi cing time, money and energy looking for perfection that’s never to be found. Thanks to “The DaVinci Code,” we now know the Grail lies beneath the Louvre in Paris, home of the $1,000 haircut, which will still grow out in six weeks and look like hell. Sounds like a conspiracy to me.