Kristen King

Kristen King credits her mother for starting her on a career path as a hair stylist, salon owner and educator. Well, maybe “blames” is a better word.

“Mom had straight hair,” the owner of Ringlets and Roots in Salinas recalls. “Mom made a mess of me as a kid. That’s probably why I became a stylist – she was so bad at it.”

For people with curls, the tumble of emotions just before a simple haircut is just about the same as, say, jumping from a plane and then realizing you forgot to strap on a parachute.

“They come in here scared to death,” says King of first-time curly-haired clients.

Those wisps of hair tangle all too easily. They don’t respond well to a shower and normal shampoo. They quiver before a wave of humidity and – most important of all – they defy all but the most trained and dedicated stylists.

King – “the curl whisperer,” according to her website – knows these problems all too well, and not only because of her childhood experience. When her own hair needs a trim, she drives up to San Francisco to find another stylist capable of dealing with her curls.

King, who described her age as “50s-ish,” began cutting hair professionally in 1980 and opened her first salon four years later in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In addition to decades as a stylist, King worked as an educator with product lines such as Schwarzkopf and L’Oréal, the company that moved her to California.

Along the way she became a curl specialist, learning the dry curl method pioneered by Lorraine Massey (Massey is the author of Curly Girl: The Handbook, and will be speaking at Ringlets and Roots on Saturday, Oct. 20 from 2-4pm). King had salons in Carmel and Pacific Grove. She opened Ringlets and Roots in 2000.

“I’ve cut millions of heads of hair,” she says. “And I still love it.”

Weekly: I didn’t know curls were such a chore.

King: It is – isn’t that funny? Look at it this way: If you have straight hair and the only hair-cutters in the world are curly, they would make your hair look like theirs, and you wouldn’t fit in. Curly hair needs to be treated in different ways.

How do you become a curl specialist?

It takes a lot of training and education – continuing education. And practice. I started with Lorraine Massey. She was the first curl girl, the one who started the curly hair revolution and the method of “Curl by Curl” – that’s a trademark. As I went along I became known for curly cuts. And as I was getting more clients, I stopped cutting straight hair.

Do you miss straight hair?

No, I don’t. It’s such a gratifying bond I have with people with curly hair because I get the pain they’ve gone through.

You do a “dry curl” cut. Just what is that?

You cut exactly where the curls lie. You don’t pull them out and cut, you don’t wet the hair first. [Pulls on own hair] If my hair was wet and you pulled it out, you’d have no idea where the curl was. This way you can see the curls.

Does all of this bother men as much?

The younger men, yes. Men with curls don’t want to be frizzy, either. So they cut it short because they don’t know what to do with it, or they come in and get educated. I cut kids’ hair, too. You save them from the experience we’ve had.

When you leave the salon are you able to turn it off?

It’s really hard. You become the hair police – “should I give them my business card?” I have gotten some clients in the grocery store. But for the most part, I don’t do that.

Some of us cut our own hair. Would you slap our wrists for that?

No, not at all. Some people just like to cut their own hair. But there will probably come a point where you have to get it right. A lot of people with curly hair cut their own because they’ve had such bad experiences.

What was the worst decade for hair styles?

I’m gonna say the ’70s – and the ’80s, with the mullets and the big perms.

If you couldn’t own a salon… ?

I love photography and gardening and decorating and fashion – I’m a busy girl. But I’d probably teach more. We really need more curly stylists.