The East Village is full of great restaurants, bars and boutiques, but a cute hair salon in the uber-trendy hood is hard to come by. Sure, there are a few grooming spots here and there, but it wasn’t until fashion exec Michael Ericson opened chic, cheeky and convenient Birds & Fellas salon on East 6th between 1st and Avenue A that I really started to see the East Village as an all-inclusive part of town. What the salon lacks in space, it makes up for in customer service. First-time customers fill out a brief profile during their appointment, which provides the salon with contact information but also with your magazine and seasonal drink preferences, so they are both waiting for you at your next appointment. The profile also ensures you’ll receive texts, emails or calls for your next appointment or when you are due for a cut or color touch-up. The modern and high-tech décor includes flat screen TV’s that air the salons current promotions, laptops for clients that have extra time and a killer sound system and music. The salon caters to young, creative customers and as Michael (whose official title at the salon is “Chief Instigator of Fun) told me during my appointment, it really is a destination – one where men and women travel to from all over the city.
Birds & Fellas does all the traditional cuts, colors and blowouts, and the expert stylists take their time to ensure you have a great experience and leave with a treatment you love. The result is a feeling of a true “neighborhood salon,” (where you get to know everyone that works there) but with the service and expertise of a higher-end salon. Their well-deserved motto is “Come on in to Birds & Fellas, and give you and your hair a big shot of happy.” One noteworthy treatment that the Birds and Fellas stylists are just raving about is their Keratin Hair Therapy.
For a long time guys lived by the motto “A little dab’ll do’ya” when it came to hair care. They didn’t put too much thought into what brands they were buying and what specialty products were available to them. For a long time, men did not understand for the life of them why their girlfriends and wives had no less than 17 bottles of hair product in the bathroom closet. Well, with the advent of the metrosexual in the late ‘90s and the men-focused product revolution of the early 2000’s, a number of lines – whether new to the market or released by industry bigwigs – have launched with men in mind. And men (myself included) are shamelessly eating it up.
The Guy on the Go
I will admit it, I am high maintenance. I take a little more time than necessary to get ready whenever I leave my apartment. This obviously isn’t the ideal routine if I happen to oversleep or am running behind. Newly launched brand Towel Dry takes all of this to heart in its line of products aimed at the guy who wants to be in and out.
Towel Dry’s two-step process includes a conditioning shampoo and high-performance styler available for all hair types. Armed with only 20 minutes to prep before brunch and the brand’s Thick/Curly hair formula, I was determined to make this a quick and easy morning. The brand is true to its motto – I was ready in no time. Thanks to the styling paste, my mop of curly locks was held in perfect place with little trouble at all. Visit http://www.toweldrymen.com for an inside peek at the products.
To make it even easier than Towel Dry does, some brands are making amazing all-in-one washes that cleanse the hair and the body. Votre Vu’s Formule 1 Men’s 3-in-1 Hair, Face and Body wash delivered the overall haul it promised. The luxury skin-care line’s newest addition to their cadre of men’s product (available at http://www.votrevu.com) has a great fresh scent and left my hair and body clean and fresh all from one little container. For the business traveler, the brand’s 3 oz. size is the perfect carry-on and eliminates the need to carry several tiny tubes of products.
Ah, my torrid NYC history of stylist-hopping. It’s scandalous, really. Ever since my move to the city ushered a disastrous split between me and my upstate hair stylist (I really thought she was The One), things just haven’t been the same.
The distress and shame regarding my ever-expanding little black book of one-appointment stands has created a worry line on my forehead that not even the chicest set of shaggy bangs can hide. I can’t understand why none of these credentialed, well-meaning stylists have clicked with me, but of one thing I’m certain: I’m tired of settling for overpriced, underwhelming cuts and colors. I want someone I can trust to expertly wield a set of scissors when – on a whim – I decide to go from long and luxurious to short and sassy. When I take a seat in that swivel chair, I want to experience a bond that is both comfortable and collaborative. I want to consistently walk out of a salon feeling like a new woman. I want fireworks. So imagine my relief when – after years spent combing and sampling the snootiest of Manhattan’s salons and spas – a quick trip within my borough delivered me the relationship I’d so desperately been seeking.
Just off the beaten path in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, nestled amongst vintage clothing shops and art galleries, I discovered Woodley & Bunny.
Celebrating its fifth year, the salon and apothecary is the brainchild of sisters Erin and Misha Anderson (“Woodley” and “Bunny” are their childhood nicknames bestowed by their father, respectively). The shop is a collaboration in every sense of the word – combining Erin’s impressive resume as a runway, print and celebrity stylist (loyal clientele include Lauren Conrad, Vera Farmiga, Shia LaBeouf, Mischa Barton and Zac Efron) and Misha’s diverse background in music, beauty and fashion design (she has held positions at Capitol Records and Rolling Stone magazine). The duo decided to meld their individual philosophies together into a dynamic space that would energize the up-and-coming neighborhood. As Erin points out, only a river separates Manhattan from Brooklyn – why shouldn’t the outer boroughs be offered the same high-end experience?