Review: ConAir French Twist Barrette

By
Amy Vansant


Every once in a while I’ll get this urge to be a girl.

Usually, this happens after returning from the hairdresser, where I watched four receptionists strut around in stylish, accessorized outfits that I wouldn’t have thought of if I were a million monkeys reading a million copies of Vogue. Whenever their aloof demeanor cracks, I imagine it is because they just instictively realized that a band I haven’t even discovered yet, is no longer cool. I sit trapped in a swivel chair, propped in front of a mirror with a giant, black lobster bib across my chest, with nothing to watch other than their reflection. It’s like a SAW movie where that puppet guy ties me down and tortures my ego instead of my body.  The only joy I get is when one of the waifs slips down a drain in the floor, never to be seen again.

Oh but you go to the hairdresser! you say. THAT is being a girl!  

No, THAT is getting the gray I’ve had since I was 22 turned to blonde so I don’t look like a homeless woman. You don’t get girly points for maintaining a look just a notch above “homeless.”

Thanks to this girly-urge, I purchased a ConAir French Twist that promised to make putting my hair in a French Twist tres easy!  I’ve always liked that look, and thought it would be a neat thing to throw into the usual mix of ponytail and nothing.

I should have known better than to believe the hype from a company called ConAir. CONHair. They told me right there on the box that this was never going to work.  That and the fact that the theme from The Sting started playing the second I picked up the package should have tipped me off.

The model on the back that demonstrates how the product works is clearly a mutant from another planet where everyone has perfect, sentient hair that you command into place.

“Hair! French Twist! Now!  Gooood hair. Go0000ood hair. Do you want a hot oil treatment? Does my liddle-widdle hair want a hot oil treatment?”

She puts this conical barrette in her stupid, STUPID hair and then pulls it to “about an inch from the ends.” Do you know anyone whose hair is all one length, down to one inch when it is pulled behind their head? Even if you don’t have layers in your hair, once you pull it back, the pieces up front will be shorter that the ones in back from covering the distance across your skull. This is simple physics. Do physics not apply in France? That could explain the shape of Gerard Depardieu.

Naturally, half my hair fell out of the ponytail by the time I slid it to the ends, making the whole thing impossible. I tried in vain to wrap it up anyway, cursing and tucking stray strands, but to no avail. Once, I thought it MIGHT look passable and asked my husband for his opinion (something I swore I’d never do). He burst out laughing, said, “Uh, no” and left the room. He’s learned to spot the warning signs and wisely moved away.

All I have left is to ask my sister-in-law if she can do it. She can French Braid her own hair. That is like MAGIC. If she can’t do it either, then I have not failed and it is all the product’s fault.

Until then, let’s just assume it is the product’s fault.