What’s in My Hair? Dog Saliva. Don’t I Look Great?
For the rich and famous, Hail Caesar! Salon in Beverly Hills has long been the ground zero of innovation, high prices and panache. So it’s no surprise that the hottest new trend in uni-sex hairstyling was invented at 30 Orchard Street, 90210.
For a mere $800 and a wait of at least a month for an appointment, you can get a Licked Look styling. (Men slightly slightly higher because they tend to squirm around.) After a shampoo and cut and a partial blow-dry, a dog of your choice then licks your hair in select areas so that it is pasted down with saliva.
“Something wonderful happens in a chemical and biological sense when the long-chained immunoglobulins in canine saliva interact with freshly shampooed human hair,” said Silvio La Cambria, Hail Caesar!’s owner.
“The hair has a wondrous sheen as if you had used a pomade, but there is no greasy feel. And those immunoglobulins bind to the proteins in the hair so that your hair doesn’t move at all. You might as well have used some kind of super glue.”
As always, Silvio is ever so coy when asked for the names of the some rich and famous clients who are now out and about with the Licked Look. “Let us just say, Darling, that in more than one recent police booking photo related to substance abuse, the trained eye can see the Hail Caesar! Licked Look.”
And if you live in a cave and are not a regular consumer of Southern California booking photos?
“Cruise, My Dear, cruise and I don’t mean Tom,” he advised. Cruise through the tables at Nic’s or Mastro’s most any evening around nine o’clock. “You can’t miss it. Look for the swept back, licked look. It’s very distinctive. Truly a signature look.”
Silvio credits his two Afghan hounds, Bebo and Febo for inspiring the Licked Look.
“My darlings spend ever so much time grooming one another, incessant licking around the face and ears and the top of the head. But we mustn’t speak of the grooming of private parts,” he said. “One day Bebo was working particularly hard on Febo’s forehead and when he was finished, my darling Febo had this glorious luster to his hair, it was such an inspiring, pasted down look! And I said to myself, ‘I just have to recreate that at Hail Caesar!”
Hail Caesar! staff members and Silvio’s friends were the experimental subjects in perfecting the Licked Look. Bebo and Febo provided the saliva. “It took many weeks after hours to get just the right technique to give me the look I wanted,” he said.
Now, two months after introducing the Licked Look, Silvio has a roster of canines who are trained and waiting for a call to put their tongues to work. Patrons have a wide choice of breeds to choose from: dachshunds to golden retrievers to Chihuahuas and everything in between, including, of course Bebo and Febo.
“It takes a certain amount of training for a dog to learn to lick precisely where I want it to lick,” Silvio said. “So I tend to rent dogs owned by trainers who supply them to the film industry. With their handler present in the salon, we have no problems with the saliva application phase of the Licked Look.”
If a Hail Caesar! patron wants a small dog, like a Chihuahua, the dog sits on a high table that is rolled up the the stylist’s chair. Larger dogs often stand on the arm of the chair in order to reach the patron’s head.
“For special cases, we have a chaise lounge that our patron can recline upon during the canine phase,” Silvio said.
Be warned. The Licked Look is catching on. Plan on booking your appointment at least one month in advance. For an added fee of $250 and depending on the outcome of an interview with the dog, certain patrons can bring their own dog to apply the saliva.