My friend R. has struggled most of her adult life with a problem most women don’t even think about on a daily basis. When she has a “bad hair day”, it means something totally different than “my hair is a little limp today,” or “OMG, it’s raining, and I just got a blowout.”

I tiptoe around what R. has confided in us. You see, R. is losing her hair. Slowly, but surely, since high school, my beautiful friend has watched her scalp grow through her hair. I have learned tricks that were not exactly mainstream in our suburban little town-what a weave was, how a tint pencil could cover scalp skin. And I felt…thankful for my beautiful head of long red hair.

As this past August was Hair Loss Awareness Month, started by the American Academy of Dermatology in 2000, I thought it fitting to do some internal and external exploration into what this means for modern women.

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, the relationship between hair and beauty became even more apparent. My mother’s relationship with her hair was that it made her feel beautiful, feminine, and, yes, healthy. A woman is told her whole life that “men love long hair,” and it is a favorite accessory for so many women – how many of us play with hair color as if it were mere lipstick? For many women in America, 39 million, to be precise, this issue is serious. Female Pattern baldness is not something talked about at the dinner table, or even at the salon, but the emotional toll is steep. Not only is it a taboo in a culture that doesn’t have many left, but women are forced to confront the idea that they are unattractive, unfeminine, or even battling cancer.

So here are some of the hard facts to help all of us better understand this from a more scientific, less, “I’ve lost so much hair in the shower – am I going bald??!” perspective:

- By age 40, most women experience some hair loss.
- Unfortunately, like male pattern baldness, female pattern baldness is primarily genetic – although to debunk yet another myth, from BOTH sides of the family tree.
- More than half (55 percent) of women would go to extreme measures – including giving up their favorite food, giving up five years of their life, not talking for a year, or breaking up with a significant other – to guarantee they’ll always have a full head of hair.
- More than half of younger Americans (57%) say they are not physically attracted to people with thinning hair.
- While over-styling hair with heat and dyes is not healthy, it doesn’t cause baldness.

As the enemy of polished looks everywhere, frizz is a much maligned, hard-to-ignore annoyance.

Everyone from the neighborhood drug store to your upscale department store and boutique apothecary has a hopeful solution for all levels of fuzzyheads; options for straightening, sleek-ifying, and flattening hair abound. From shampoo and conditioner to serum and spray, from pump to gel to lotion to leave-in, an army of products vies for your attention (and dollars) on crammed shelves. Each promises the easy path to sleek victory. But who has the best artillery, really, if all the products have shared the same “active ingredient” – namely, silicone – for 30 years?

While no one can dispute the fact that silicone can indeed help create smooth, shiny hair, its efficacy can come at a cost: it can also weigh hair down, making it look and feel greasy or limp.

Apparently though, no one has cared enough about those issues to improve upon silicone for three decades – that is, until the scientists at MIT wrapped their heads around it.

What they discovered is called PolyfluoroEster, a revolutionary formula that became the basis of Living Proof No Frizz: an absolutely (gasp!) silicone-free line of hair products. It was about time we at BN gave it a try after all the rave reviews we’ve heard.

Sweet summer: the season of hazy nights, short skirts, sangria outdoors…and bangs plastered to your forehead. Lovely.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my long hair. But ladies with locks of all lengths can agree that once summer rolls around, all of our normal tactics for making our hair behave go flying out the window. For me, summer means my hair expanding by a minimum of three inches in every direction and my bangs adhering themselves to my face the second I step outdoors. If you, like me, are tired of having to throw your hair up into boring ponytails and haphazard buns to beat the heat, then read on for some helpful summer tips from The Little Hair Shoppe.

A little background: I first discovered The Little Hair Shoppe last fall after a tragic bang incident that left me pinning up my “bangs” for months. When I finally couldn’t take it anymore, I wandered into the adorable shop with the red awning, asked stylist Dane Kalloo for help, and walked out with regulation, Grade A side swept bangs that I was proud to leave down. The bobby pins were banished to the back of my drawers, and I had found my new favorite go-to salon.

So, of course, when the summer heat was making me and my hair desperate, I went running back to Kalloo for some help.

Even Kalloo, who became a stylist at The Little Hair Shoppe three years ago after spending 15 years working as an event planner, admits that this summer in particular has been an incredibly painful, humid one. “Most of the girls are just walking in and cutting it all off!” he said.

Celebrity salons are a dime a dozen in Manhattan…or are they? It’s true that you can find one quite easily in this city. Flip through the pages of your most recent Vogue, Elle or Allure magazines and you’ll see a slew of them gushed about as hot spots for celebs, names of whom are dropping all over the pages like rain. So the question becomes: how does one celebrity salon set itself apart from the next? What makes such a salon worth the $500+ you’ll most likely spend there on a cut and color? What makes it worth the hype and celebs want to spend their disposable income at one vs. another? The answer is experience and talent. While some hot spot celeb salons have huge name clientele to boast, if their staff isn’t worth the same raves, the salon’s clout is little.

This is why Marie Robinson’s new salon is distinct: not only can she boast a hotbed of big name clients from Anne Hathaway to Natalie Portman to Liv Tyler, her talented staff have stayed by her and look up to her as they would any mentor or beloved parent. Together, the staff at Marie Robinson is like a family – an assortment of talented stylists and colorists who all share Marie’s passion for color and hair innovation as well as her welcoming attitude, thus creating an atmosphere that is both upscale and homey.

And that’s exactly how I would describe Marie. When I met her, she was dressed in the most effortlessly put-together punk-rock-chic style that exuded a sense of luxury as well as comfort and hominess. Let me be more specific: tie-dye tunic, army green cotton harem pants, bejeweled accessories, messily-pulled back platinum blonde hair. She donned this cacophony of objects that otherwise might have seemed mismatched but on her were the pinnacle of style.

June in New York City is typically…well…perhaps typically isn’t the right word anymore. This year, June seems to be worse than August, which doesn’t bode well for the heat and humidity the next few months will surely dump on us. And through the hot mess that is the NYC summer, our feet will be beset with flip-flop scars, our shirt pits sweaty pools, our skin a constant sheen and our hair completely irreparable.

You feel like jumping in but don’t want to ruin your hair. We know the feeling

While the concrete jungle of NYC is certainly up there on the list of hot cities, almost everywhere in the country women suffer with this dilemma: how can we muster up the strength, motivation, etc. to do our hair when by the time we arrive at our desks in the morning it looks worse than after running the half marathon? As it turns out, companies are privy to this “situation” and have tried to remedy it for us – thank goodness. In fact, there are so many products worth noting this summer that BN will bring you two parts to this story, Part II coming next month. These are the brands who have devised tools that will keep our hair in check, even through this hottest of hot summers (global warming anyone?) The irony is that in order to keep said hair in check, we must often add heat to it, which of course is the last thing we want to do in a 90+ degree apartment. Alas, this may be the only way to conquer the beast, so duck into an air conditioned room and make use of some of the following tools this summer.

If you Must BlowDry, Blow Dry Right
We understand that for some gals, the idea of NOT blowdrying before leaving the house is sacrilegious, a hair crime of epic proportions. If you are one who can’t even dream of exiting your home without perfectly and fully dried hair, consider the Paul Mitchell Pro Tools Express Ion Dry v.2. While it’s not terribly new, (launched in April of last year) it’s a real performer.

At 1875 watts, this is true professional grade, suitable for preparation to brave the humidity-soaked air. With a powerful air flow and an extra dose of Express Ion Complex™, this high-speed styling tool cuts back on your drying time to maximize healthy results. Far infrared heat protects hair from damage, and super-charged negative ions break up water molecules to infuse them into the hair shaft, restoring moisture and sealing the cuticle. The dryer is available only at professional salons, so you’ll have to do some digging, but the find will be worth your while.