Along With Babies, Hairstylists Are Arriving in Hospitals

Apologies for the hiatus, Hateful Readers. We temporarily relocated to the West Coast where we were caught in a miasma of sunshine, ice cream, and brunch. Life on the Lifestyle Coast, as we like to call it, is like a being in a coma: while a relaxing break from the indignities of capitalism (that is, if you're not paying rent), it's not exactly up to you when you leave. When you finally do wake up, you're greeted by a nurse in white dreads, a hospital bill, and some sign the world has changed for the worse--climbing gyms for toddlers or something.

But we digress. This past week brought plenty of red meat in our CSA of Hate Reads. The latest journalistic atrocity the Times has aided and abetted is a feature on new mothers who contract with hairdressers to do their hair sometime between cutting the umbilical cord and placing the placenta in a doggy bag to drop into an omelet during brunch in Park Slope:

“I think someone realized, ‘Why should I not look good for that great picture that I’m going to show everybody, the first picture of my child?’ ” said Joel Warren, an owner of the Warren-Tricomi salons. 

Finally this public health--erm, hair--crisis is being addressed. And by no less than our favorite demographic: lawyers who live in the financial district.

When Donna Yip, a lawyer who lives in the financial district, went into labor with her second child in June, she had more than just her husband and medical team in her room at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. 

Jackson Simmonds from the Julien Farel Restore Salon & Spa was also there, with a curling iron, hair dryer and boar bristle hairbrushes in his Longchamp tote. They were his tools to style Ms. Yip’s hair immediately after delivery.

And here we were thinking that boar bristle brushes were passé. But never underestimate the rich: as Fitzgerald said, "The rich are not like you and me; they're cray." Ms. Yip a lawyer to Oak Hill Advisors, a firm "specializing in below investment grade credit markets" (that's investment-speak for "stealing candy from babies") would never leave pictures in the delivery room to chance, nor would the brave Upper East Side nurses who serve our corporate overlords:

“We have a lot of patients who have had a long labor, and they are like, ‘O.K., I want cool pictures of me and my baby,’ ” said Lisa Schavrien, the obstetric nurse navigator at Lenox Hill Hospital, who keeps in her mobile phone a list of hairstylists from nearby salons for the five to 10 new mothers for whom she helps arrange in-room appointments each month.

But let us not hate on Ms. Schavrien, who is probably under pressure from from millionaire hospital CEO Michael Dowling to bring in the bacon. Everyone wants to know, healthcare reporter Rachel Felder, what does it cost to have a hairdresser waiting for you after you burst out a ball of blood and slime? Is it a pre-existing condition? Will insurance cover it?

A hospital-room booking with a stylist from an upscale salon can be expensive: An out-of-salon call by Mr. Lospalluto costs $700; the charge for a similar booking from Julien Farel’s salon is $500. Stylebookings.com appointments start at $180 before tax and tip. Prices for Glamsquad’s services begin at $50.

Some us were probably worried about the outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease in the South Bronx, a potentially fatal bacterial pneumonia, but yes, please bring on the cool pictures. Patti Wilson, a director at the august journalistic instituted called OK! Magazine (because nothing denotes gravitas like an exclamation point and the word "magazine" to warn readers there may be words inside), put it succinctly:

“This is a moment where it’s one of those milestones. I’ll feel better if it’s blown out, and in pictures it will look better.”

If the New York Times style page stands for anything, it's for the proposition that everything looks better blown out. Perhaps the paper's motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print," should be upgraded to the aspirational "How to Look Fabulous All the Time" or the more prosaic "Stuff About Brazilian Blowouts." We'd at least be forewarned.

Would you like to accentuate your placenta?