Valery Joseph, a hair salon on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, is the kind of place where everyone who arrives seems to look as if they could be leaving. Almost to a person, their hair is thick, lustrous, and as long as my college-age daughter’s.
I clearly missed that memo. After Joseph’s assistant openly grimaces at my “frizzy” and apparently unmanageable hair while blowing it dry, I feel like I’m owed their secrets. Joseph acknowledges that his clientele is, in general, intimidatingly polished. (I added “intimidatingly.”) If one comes in with less-than-luscious hair, “we kind of have a recipe, how we can get you to where you want to get,” Joseph says. He sometimes adds extensions and recommends a nutritionist, who advises his clients to follow a diet rich in lean proteins and healthy fats, similar to what could be found in a Mediterranean diet.
