FASHION : Not for Women Only : Beauty Parlor Services Such as Hair Dye, Tints, Weaves, Mustache Tints, Manicures and Facials Offer Genteel Damage Control

“Beauty is truth; truth beauty”--

Keats

Barriers are made to be broken. Thus, women in recent years have advanced fearlessly into poolrooms, fire stations, fighter planes and mud wrestling pits. Not to be outdone, men have stalwartly invaded beauty parlors.

The first male to successfully challenge this once-feminine sanctuary is unrecorded. But, just as Sally Ride opened outer space to the ranks of American women, this unknown trailblazer crossed a similar frontier.

It began with the permanent wave. Guys wanted curls; barbers disdained to create them. In desperation, men left the artless world of the barbershop, and, in what would prove to be a giant step for man, turned to the salon.

Once inside, they saw the mysteries of artifice revealed, and evidently longed to join in. As years went by, they lost their innocence, so to speak. Permanents, hair coloring, manicures, and now facial treatments have become commonplace in this arena.

“(Facials) have almost been one of those in-the-closet things nobody would want to admit to. Probably in the last five years just as many men as women are into their skin care,” said Marilyn Taylor, supervising instructor at Lu Ross Beauty Academy in Ventura.

Not only do men submit to a cleansing, scrub and mask on the face--a few regular beach-goers request the same treatment for the back, a procedure Taylor termed the “back facial,” although it seemed to us a classic contradiction in terms.

All things considered, the back-to-nature movement appears to have a number of holdouts in Ventura County. Middle-agers especially are visiting salons to employ a kind of genteel damage control.

“The baby boomers are getting more gray. And with the (number of) jobs available, a lot of companies are putting the older guys out to pasture a lot earlier,” said David G. Michaels, who has a salon in Oxnard serving men and women. “That tends to lead guys my age toward hair dye, tints, weaves, mustache tints, going to the gym, the whole shot. They’re into the whole thing just like women are.”

Although they may take part in beauty routines, men do not necessarily want to go public about it.

“Men are vary paranoid about looking fake,” said Denise Horton, who owns The Hair Grove in Westlake Village. “Women can do their hair in burgundy colors, and they look really sharp. Men would look (artificial).”

She described her clients as “California conservative,” which seems to translate to moderately trendy. A number of them are into such procedures as eyebrow waxing to define brows that merge in the middle, and even eyelash tinting--probably at the high end of the anti-macho scale.

“It looks great,” said Horton, “It takes somebody that has white eyelashes on the tips. (We dye) them, and you’d never know. They just have these great eyelashes.”

Beard painting is common at the shop, as is color weaving for the hair, a process invented for highlighting or streaking. To hide gray hair, the technique involves individually wrapping tiny strands of hair with foil containing color matched to the client’s original color, leaving some hair gray. It looks more natural, and needs to be retouched far less often than solidly dyed hair.

Horton’s shop originally served only women; but her clients referred their husbands and male friends until her business is now about 20% male.

Still, “(Men) are shy about being in a salon. If I had a separate section for men only, I think I’d have a lot more of them,” she said.

In Camarillo, Barbara Hamilton said when she opened her salon, Shear Talent, she set out to attract both sexes.

“I have kept everything in black and almond, with a slight touch of blue; that’s pleasing to men,” she said.

About a third of Shear Talent’s clients are men, although three out of four of these come strictly for hair styling, she said. Many of them have longer hair; her theory is that traditional barbers don’t deal as well with this style.

A very small minority of males want a manicure, and the rest are there for color work. They want to match a beard to a head of hair that is a different color, or to get color weaving for the head. Older men want to hide gray, younger ones want a sun-bleached look, especially in the winter, Hamilton said.

One client, Tony Ash of Oxnard, has been visiting salons for about six years.

“I’ve tried a couple of barbers in clutch situations, and they don’t even listen,” said Ash, a tile setter who gets blond highlights added to his hair.

Michaels in Oxnard said that not only are men becoming at ease with added color, he’s also getting requests for hair extensions from men who want longer locks without waiting to grow out their own.

It all goes to show that as is their heritage, men continue striving to conquer limits. Give them uncharted territory, and they will go for it.

Reflecting on this, there may be just one unshared element left in the feminine domain: the skirt. If in the future this trend is challenged, you will read about it here.

Kathleen Williams writes the weekly fashion column for Ventura County Life. Write to her at 5200 Valentine Road, Suite 140, Ventura 93003, or send faxes to 658-5576.