RJ's First Haircut and Momma's Paraben and Phlalate Soapbox

Since he was born a year ago, RJ's hair has been growing and, like me, he has not had a haircut in the last year. For the last month or so, he has been sporting what looked more and more like a mullet, which just isn't cool. Why does hair on the back of one's head grows faster than hair on the top? It's rather annoying.

Anyway, I remembered a little girl that I babysat in Arlington, MA went to a cute hair salon called Snip-It's (which caters exclusively to children) for her haircuts. After some googling on the internets, I discovered that Snip-Its was a chain that had a location in Greenville (but not anywhere in CA). So with 6 adults (Momma, Daddy, Grammie Carola, Grandma D, Aunt Amy, and Grandma D's friend Sabra) in tow, RJ headed to the local Snip-It's for his first of many hair cuts. Interestingly, we learned via the baby blog world that one day later, RJ's buddy Jace also went to a Snip-It's (albeit one in the Boston area) for his first haircut!

First, RJ played with some scissors:



Then he made friends with the other customers. And finally, after waiting a while, he got his haircut. This went very well when the bubble machine was on


and when he had brushes to hold:


I'm satisfied with the result:


BUT, there are a couple of points that I'd like to make about Snip-It's. First, the woman cutting his hair was fantastic - she was patient and made the cut fun for him, and carefully selected a tuft of hair for us to save for posterity. Second, as great as she was, as Heather pointed out in their blog, it is not a cheap little haircut. Plus, it makes NO sense that an establishment for children wouldn't make appointments. We had to wait a while (at least 45 minutes - although I wasn't really paying attention that closely) since they only take walk-ins, and with an active one-year-old, waiting, even with an ample supply of toys provided, is something that I personally like to avoid.

Third, do not call a product "all natural" if it has parabens (synthetic chemical preservatives) in it. While I'd prefer us not using these chemicals at all, I'm not arguing that companies can't use them - but don't call something natural that's not. Some say that the jury is still out whether parabens are dangerous to our reproductive health or not, but I'd rather not take a chance when there are perfectly good natural alternatives out there. Also, while I'm sure a good mousing would've made RJ really cute at Snip-It's, it's also not necessary and he will have many years ahead of him where he can argue to use the not-so-natural products himself. So I declined the use of the Snip-It's spray mouse after looking at the ingredient list. But as a bonus point for our stylist, she did give us the option of product usage and allowed me to look at the ingredient list before just spraying the mouse on RJ.

And finally, for your viewing pleasure, some video clips of the event!