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Printed From Acorn-Online.com Wilton Bulletin
During her 21 years as a salon owner in Wilton, Frieda Newton jotted down all kinds of notes, on paper napkins, quarter-inch strips of paper, envelopes, anything at all, about the funny things that happened daily at her salon. Customers who asked for more hairspray until their hair was immovable, little kids squirming all over the place while their hair was being cut, customers who said “Do it just like last time” when “last time” was a year ago were among her anecdotes. When she had eight years’ worth of humorous incidents, she turned it into a 64-page book: Color Me Thursday with illustrations by Michael Lobasz. The title, she explains, is salon language. “Many women who are going to a wedding over the weekend will have their hair done on Saturday, but their coloring on Thursday,” she said. Though beauty salons are typically places where customers share many personal stories with their stylists, Ms. Newton says she never ran a gossipy salon. “Everything was confidential and if I found my staff chatting about customers, I’d stop it immediately,” she said. The book reflects the fact that a hair salon owner has to know lots about psychology. “I might have a woman with long hair come in who just had a fight with her husband and she’d say, ‘Cut my hair off!’ and I’d tell her I wouldn’t do it then, but if she still felt the same way next week, I would. By then, I knew she’d change her mind,” she said. Ms. Newton is a fifth-generation Darien resident from a large Italian family. She’d worked in a Wilton salon for awhile and liked the town so much she opened her own salon in the Gateway Shopping Center off Route 7. She started with 1,000 square feet and it grew to a two-level 3,200-square-foot spa, with facials, massage, tanning, waxing. She had a full staff, many of whom worked for her the whole 21 years. As the salon grew, customers who’d moved to Florida or Georgia came back to have their hair done whenever they visited Wilton, she said. “I never thought I’d be a hairdresser,” she said. “But I knew I didn’t want a 9 to 5 desk job, and a friend suggested hairstyling and I thought ‘Why not?’ so I went to the National Academy of Hairdressing in Norwalk.” Ms. Newton is a ‘why not?’ sort of woman. She also has a product she invented and patented, the I.D. Hide-ee concealed pocket, which may be worn on the wrist or ankle or under clothing, and holds necessities like driver’s license, credit card, money, keys, fastens with Velcro and is ideal when exercising, traveling, or doing sports. She is marketing this along with her book. The first version of Color Me Thursday consisted of actual case histories but then she realized there would be all sorts of legal considerations, so she changed it to an anecdotal, fictionalized version, which is very readable and entertaining. Ms. Newton has several book signings planned and hopes to get the book into hairdressing schools, so stylists-to-be can be armed with a sense of humor about their careers. In her private life, Ms. Newton has two very supportive adult children and she loves to cook and grows her own tomatoes. She learned how to use the computer to write the book, and would love to see Color Me Thursday made into a movie. If there’s a message, it’s that there’s more to hairdressing than just hair. “Hairdressing is very creative, and a hairdresser likes to create. So a customer should try not to interrupt the flow with a lot of instructions. But if a customer isn’t satisfied for any reason at all, she or he should definitely talk to the stylist about it,” she said. Color Me Thursday may be purchased online through iuniverse.com and at The Open Book Shop at 5 River Road. Ms. Newton plans to get it into as many bookstores as she can. © Copyright 2007 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers |
