The next day was all about clothes. “We were ushered into Saks Fifth Ave. to the upper level exclusive dressing rooms. There we met our stylists and spent the day trying on shoes, dresses, pants, blouses, Spanx … and we were all given a bra fitting and new undergarments. (Wa-Hoo!!)”

So far, so good, she and her companion sister were thinking as they arrived on Monday at Harpo Studios. “Before” shots were taken in the “frumpy” outfits they were told to bring from home, and then the process began in a temporary salon built behind Oprah’s main set. From 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Goldie describes, she and eight other women were “bleached, plucked, polished and waxed” for their on-stage transformation. Each woman had her own producer who reevaluated the “dramatic change” every couple hours. One poor contestant had her hair dyed three times that day.

Goldie didn’t want to dye her hair. She comes from a family of “happy, white-haired women” and was quite proud of her locks. She used to joke that the only person who could get her to dye her hair was Oprah, and now that day had arrived.

“The head hair lady, Rita Hazen and her assistants, walked around me and stared at my hair. They felt it, took notes and then came back to give me ‘the talk.’ ‘We’ve decided that your best look is blond!’ Say what??, I sputtered!” But they insisted. “They said I wouldn’t notice the root grow-out as much as a blond … it would be ‘easy’ to keep up with this look, so, I became an Oprah Blond that day. My head was burned so much from the bleach that my scalp skin peeled off after I got home. NOT glamorous at all!!”

Tuesday morning she went back to Harpo for the taping, which was a lot of parading around on the set to the applause of a wishful audience. Directly afterwards they had a brief photo-op with Oprah and then the limo driver took them to the airport and it was all over – “except for the dang Oprah Blond sitting like shredded wheat on top of my head!”

“My blond hair looked good for the camera. My sister loved it. My husband loved it. I hated it. It was harsh. My hair was dry as straw and my poor scalp looked and felt like the Mojave Desert! My husband convinced me to keep it for a year. Reluctantly, I agreed and marked the date on my calendar. Exactly one year later I stopped and have never dyed my hair again.”

Goldie explained to LookinGood that this makeover routine had nothing to do with the person chosen: it’s all about TV drama. From her description, they choose people who will look good on camera, present well and can showcase new style and esthetic technique, then they gussy them up for one day on camera – and send them home. Goldie didn’t learn a thing from the specialists. “There was no advice for you to take home,” she laughed, “except maybe that jewel tones look good one everyone.”  Big help.

What she did learn was about the process and something about herself. She hated the chemicals and what it did to her scalp and is still a bit baffled that no one listened to her during the session. She hated the maintenance of color and trying to achieve the same result each time. She hated the expense. But the biggest reason was simple: “I felt less authentic,” she said.

In the end, maybe she did end up with a makeover of sorts after all.

Diana Lewis Jewell was Goldie’s inspiration for going back to her natural gray.  Jewell will appear on The Today Show, Wednesday, June 2, 2010.

1)  It seems to me that more women are opting to let their hair go gray than say, 10 years ago.  Is that true, and if so, why?

Try five years ago!  Ten years ago, we had trailblazers. Now we have real women, from all walks of life, saying enough is enough. And it’s a global phenomenon. We have women in 84 countries logging into www.goinggraylookinggreat.com They’re not just aging boomers. Women are choosing this option in their early 30’s as well. They just don’t want the chemicals. When we did a survey on the site, we found out that women do this for a variety of reasons. The biggest one is authenticity – natural beauty is becoming a trend in its own right. Then we get into things like freedom from roots and scheduling hair appointments around their lives. Health and condition of the hair factors into it, too. Interestingly, the last reason was the high cost of coloring.

2)  Your book and website devote a lot time to transitioning.  What is the first piece of information you give to someone who has made the decision to stop coloring?

The first piece of advice always depends on the color of hair they start out with. Vibrant-to-dark redheads have a difficult transition. They have to soften the color, bring it down a notch. Brunettes and darker have a tough time with an obviously white skunk stripe. That’s when highlights help. The idea is always to reduce the contrast as much as possible. Natural blondes have an easier time of it, but not bleached blondes. Remember, all your hair doesn’t turn gray at once. You still might have dark roots, and the bleached blonde ends will oxidize and get brassy. So, yes, there are lots of strategies involved, including going cold turkey. Once some women are done with color, they’re done. Still, there are things to ease you through: toners, glazes, root touch ups, temporary rinses. After that, we move into hair styling. Layers work. Zigzag parts. Pulling your hair back at the sides to reveal the new growth. We discuss these daily on the site. Women are always looking for the speed bullet. Everyone wants a magic potion; so they’re fully colored one day, gray the next. Even your salon won’t do that. Maybe you can find one that will bleach your hair all the way out and apply a silver toner. But you’re still stuck on the color merry-go-round. Transitioning serves a purpose. If only to give yourself time to get used to the “new” you.

3) What is the most common problem with women who have decided to go gray?

That’s an easy one – Impatience! The first inch is truly exciting. The second and third, not so much. That’s when women begin to have doubts. Happens every time. They wonder what they’re doing; their friends wonder what they’re doing. The most important thing to know is that you can’t tell what “final” shade of silver you’ll end up with when you’re going through the calico stage. Because your “other” colors, real or not, reflect on your silvers. So whether you trim the ends off gradually, or go for the big whack, you have to get all that other color gone before your true shade emerges. If they can just get over this hump, they’re good to go.

There is a whole community of women on Diana’s website ready to share their observations as well:

www.goinggraylookinggreat.com/

You can buy her book there, too!

For many, the solution to thinning hair is a transplant.  But what do you do about thinning eyebrows?  Exactly the same thing.

Follicle by follicle, hair restoration surgeons can replenish or replace not just the hairs on top of your head, but those on the front of it as well. That probably sounds like an extreme solution to a minor problem, but face it – eyebrows are something people notice right away.

[continued here from the newsletter]

Whether they’re perfectly arched, drawn on with crayon or you’re sporting a unibrow, others notice. So when brows are thinning, patchy or missing all together, those who say it doesn’t affect their self-confidence are most likely fibbing.

There are a lot of reasons people lose their eyebrows:  Medical treatments such as radiation or chemotherapy; thyroid issues; and simply aging can all cause thinness.  More and more frequently, experts say they are being called upon to fix the thin, patchy brows that are the result of long-term overzealous plucking.

The internet is rife with sob stories from women who have been tweezing since their “tweens,” and whose eyebrows stopped growing back … giving me yet another reason to be glad I ignored mine until my mid 30s.  Tired of filling in the missing locks with pencils and powders, more women, and some men, are turning to transplants.  Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, who has practices across the U.S., says on his website that he is performing two to three transplants a week, and that 30 percent of his eyebrow clients are men.  He estimates the cost for the procedure at $3,000-$5,000.

According to the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS), there are different procedures available to restore or replace eyebrows: micrografting, when one or two hairs at a time are transplanted into the brow; and less frequently, flap or strip grafting, when a strip of appropriate hair is transplanted to the brow area.

Surprisingly, the so-called donor hair used for eyebrow transplants is finer rather than coarser, to be a better match. It sometimes has to be trained to keep its shape with gel or wax, and because it grows at a faster rate than typical eyebrow hair, it will likely have to be trimmed more often.  According to stories of people who have had the procedure done, it takes a couple of months before you start seeing the results. That’s the time it takes for the hair to take root in its new position and start to grow again.

Of course, transplants aren’t for everyone. There are the traditional pencils and powders, if they don’t conjure scary thoughts of the third-grade teacher with drawn-on eyebrows that keep you up at night. And don’t forget the eyebrow toupee. Why sew it on when you can stick it on?

• Here’s a great article from The Mail in the UK about a woman who had her eyebrows transplanted.

Even with effective products, it takes a good 30-60 minutes of blow-drying to deal with the waves and the cowlick (Keep THAT in mind all you people who have said ‘I wish I had thick hair like yours.’)

That’s a lot of time to invest on a regular basis, and for that reason, keratin hair treatments – sometimes called the Brazilian Blowout – have caught my eye. The idea of having a process done that would straighten these dreaded locks for 3-6 months seems almost too good to be true. What had kept me from it previously was the cost ($350-$500) and the time (about 3 hours) as the chemicals are applied section by section, the hair is dried and then slowly straightened with a flat iron.  It is a fair price for the time it takes a stylist, to be sure, but it is steep, nonetheless.

What will keep me from a Brazilian blowout now are the ingredients in most of the products needed for the process to work: formaldehyde or some other “aldehyde.”  TotalBeauty.com recently did a great slideshow about the process that included a look at the most popular solutions being used.  They report that the amount of formaldehyde – a known cancer-causing agent — or similar substance, is low enough to be within acceptable standards of the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration (OSHA).  Separately, however, Beauty Brains weighs in on the safety issue, warning that the levels of these ingredients may be unsafe.

There are also some side effects that could come with keratin hair treatments, too, like hair loss. Handfuls. Each time you wash. Some women also reported excessive dryness, altered color; dullness after the initial shine … the list goes on.

There are other women who swear by the treatment, though, calling a Brazilian blowout life changing. The chance to have straight hair, without the frizz or the work for months at a time is so appealing. And I completely understand the anguish in a question submitted to RealSelf.com by someone desperate enough to consider a surgical hair transplant to get straighter hair.

The point here isn’t to condemn the treatment or scare you away, but to remind you to do your homework.  It’s easy to get carried away by the thought of a process that will simplify and beautify our lives.  Just like you’d find a reputable surgeon, if you’re considering this, find a reputable stylist. Talk to people you know and trust.

Well, this one that we found, Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE), is just that: another hole (or more accurately, series of holes) in your head. The hairs to be transplanted are extracted from the back and sides of the head using a tiny (.8 mm), circular punch that leaves little to no scarring. The hairs are then transplanted to the desired spot on the head. The description of the “punch” makes us think of a really, really little biscuit-cutter or something made by Ronco and sold during an infomercial.

In May, a press release from the recently formed Foundation for Hair Restoration and Plastic Surgery touted this as a “breakthrough procedure,” and it could be, but it’s not exactly new. It started emerging in 2002, with recent advancements in the extraction “punch” that have made it smaller and less invasive.

This same press release calls FUE “incisionless,” which we find hard to believe because a) pulling out tiny circular pieces of scalp sure sounds like there’s cutting involved even if the surgeon isn’t using a scalpel; and b) the extracted follicles are implanted in tiny incisions in the other part of the scalp.

One of the pros of FUE is supposed to be that because the scarring is minimal, men can wear their hair shorter or have a buzz cut.

Topping the list of cons is that it takes a long time – sometimes two or more sessions that can last up to 9 hours. And the best cost estimate we’ve found is $4 per graft. During some of those marathon sessions, as many as 1,200 grafts are being done. You do the math.

As with any plastic surgery, do your homework. Most of the information out there says this procedure isn’t right for everyone. And though more surgeons are offering FUE, that doesn’t mean they all have the experience to do it well. You know you need a bad hair transplant like you need …. well, you get the idea.

• True & Dorin, The Hair Loss Doctors, explain and offer the procedure here.
• Hair Loss Learning Center cautions about the hype on FUE.
• Want to see how it works?  The HairNetwork offers a video on YouTube.

HairLoss.com announced it will lead an industry-wide effort to raise the standards of service within the hair loss industry, and thereby promote confidence among some skeptical customers. Commencing this effort is a newly released “Client Bill of Rights,” intended to be instrumental in improving client satisfaction in the multi-billion dollar hair loss industry.  Other solution providers may display the Bill of Rights seal if they comply with the new standards created by HairLoss.com.

According to gadget-maker Conair, there are about 22 million men between the ages of 22 to 65 shaving their heads regularly.  That’s a lot of chrome domes. It seems like there are nearly as many websites, blogs and books dedicated to shaving one’s head. And though the vox populi seem to lean toward razors, most turn to an electric shaver like the Norelco Advantage ($31.95), Braun Sychro ($199.99), Wahl Pro 8061 ($54.99) or Panasonic 8023 Wet/Dry Linear ($69.99), especially when time and sensitivity are an issue. The electrics are less likely to leave razor burn, and inexperienced head shavers have fewer nicks and cuts. One cannot claim to be bald or beautiful with little bits of toilet paper stuck all over one’s scalp.

The debate is whether or not an electric shaver can actually get a head smooth enough, and the consensus is pretty much “no.” Most men want just one unit to handle hair from the neck up, most devices are geared toward beard and mustache maintenance and are designed as such. They have pop-up trimmers for sideburns and mustaches. But even without consulting Gray’s Anatomy (or watching “Grey’s Anatomy”), we know that you shouldn’t shave a round head with something tailored to a square jaw.  When they need more power, those men who are really serious about their baldness seem to like Conair’s fairly new Clean Head Head Shaver ($36.88), which claims to have the first shaving apparatus to follow the unique angles of your head.

If Conair’s numbers are right and that many men are taking it all off up top, their head shaver might be the first, but you can bet it won’t be the last.

There are numerous sites out there to help you with product and technique.  Here are just a few:

• HeadShaver.org
• Men’sFlair.com
• TheBrotherhoodofBaldPeople.com
• Surviving-Hairloss.com
• CoolMensHair.com

And just for fun — http://www.balderazzi.com/

The Toppik X5 HairLaser looks like it could be any of the above, but it’s actually a  handheld laser that you rub on your head to stimulate hair growth. (Remember guys, we can’t make this stuff up.)

The X5 claims to be the “only device that delivers laser light directly to the scalp, bypassing any intervening hair,” and it just might be what it says it is.  Either that or it’s a new kind of military device.

Brought to you by Spencer Forrest Advanced Solutions, who are also known for Toppik Hair Building Fibers – a kind of sprinkle-on hair system using fiber that has built in static electricity.  But the X5 sprays lasers rather than fiber on to the head.  You simply rub it over your scalp for 10-15 minutes a session, three times a week, delivering 60 milliwatts of energy at a frequency of 650 nanometers.

We’re not quite sure what that means, but the Bernstein Medical Center for Hair Restoration explains that low-level laser therapy “is based on the scientific principle of photo-biotherapy.” What THAT means is “laser light is absorbed by cells and stimulates cell metabolism and protein synthesis.” And what THAT means is that “it appears to stimulate the follicles on the scalp by increasing energy production and by reversing miniaturization.”

Got it now?

According to the X5 manufacturer, you rub the red lights on your head as directed and after six weeks you’ll see stronger, thicker hair.

Touted as the next generation of laser hair therapy, the X5 doesn’t get hot, there are no side effects and it can be used in conjunction with other hair-growth therapies like Rogaine or Propecia. It’s also cordless (!), offers an ergonomic grip (!!), a real-time display that shows the precise elapsed time of your session and has an introductory price of $299, with a six-month money-back guarantee.

And hey, if it doesn’t work and you don’t want to return it, just display it on a side table and tell people it was prop in “War of the Worlds.”

Remember when we told you LookinGood couldn’t make this stuff up? Hari’s of London introduced its attention-grabbing treatment about 18 months ago and it was touted as the next possible trend in high-end hair care by Cosmetics Design.

But golly, it hasn’t caught on yet, (picture me scratching my semen-deprived locks in mock disbelief), though it’s still on the menu at Hari’s.

It could be because of the economy. The process — an intense protein treatment that supposedly “repairs, restores and brightens” — is part of a three-step treatment that runs a cool £100 (about $150 in U.S. dollars).

It could also be that it’s just gross. The mixture of bull sperm and katira plant root extract is massaged into the hair, then heat is applied to allow the product to be absorbed. The semen is stored in the fridge in straws – hopefully not the same fridge where the stylists keep their lunches.

Salon owner Hari Salem says it’s a perfect treatment for damaged hair. Hair, after all, is protein and dry hair is repaired by replenishing the protein. Couldn’t he just suggest clients eat more chicken? Or offer them a handful of nuts … oh wait …

But seriously, I am not one to judge, simply a provider of information. And just because this isn’t for me, there could be someone else out there reading this who wants to give it a go.

SO, if you can’t make it to London or are one of those do-it-yourselfers, ehow.com offers step-by-step instructions on collecting semen from a bull. Of course, if you don’t have a beast handy or know anyone who does, there’s always bullsemen.com. The site, which technically is for cattle breeders, includes pictures (!) as well as vital information about the, um, donors.

And that’s no bull.

• Don’t kow about Rocky mountain oysters?  Click here.
• Cosmetics Design weighs in.
• Link to Hari’s treatments page: http://www.harissalon.com/hairtreatments.php
• eHow tells you how, but maybe you don’t want to know.