Thanks to trendy hairstyle names circulating social media, it’s become more apparent that hairstylists and their clients aren’t speaking the same language.
Theresa Van Dam (@theresavandamstylist) is a hairstylist and TikTok influencer who is known for her over-the-top reenactments of encounters with clients. Recently, she re-enacted how these conversations go by pretending to be a customer and responding as a confused stylist in a video that amassed over 6.2 million views.
@theresavandamstylist #greenscreen #hairtok #haircolor #fyp #foryoupage #hairstylist ♬ original sound – Theresa Van Dam
“When social media keeps coming up with new names for everything and you can’t keep up,” the text overlay began.
“I was thinking like magnesium sulfate,” the client began. When the hairstylist appeared confused about this color, the client explained that it’s popular. “It’s all over Pinterest. It’s the color everybody’s asking for right now.”
But when the hairdresser saw a photo, she noticed that “magnesium sulfate” wasn’t a new color at all; it was just a “medium warm blonde.”
For the cut, the client insisted on another hairstyle trend: a “pink fairy armadillo” cut. When the hairdresser seemed confused once again, the client became upset.
“Don’t tell me you need a photo again. I mean, c’mon, you’re the hairdresser, you guys are supposed to keep up with this stuff, right? The pink fairy armadilloo cut,” she said.
“So just long layers and straight across bangs,” the hairdresser tried to confirm. But the client insisted that’s not what she wanted, and insisted on the pink fairy armidllo cut.
Rather than argue with her, the hairstylist agreed, while knowing in the back of her mind that she wasgoing to simply replicate the haircut in the photo.
For the style, the client name-dropped an unusual style: “dirty truckstop bathroom curls.”
“So like waves,” the hairstylist responded. “No, not like waves. Dirty truck stop bathroom curls,” the client said as the video ended.
In the comments, TikTok users agreed with Van Dam that the trendy hairstyle names have gone too far.
“The fact that my search says pink fairy armadillo haircut as if enough people thought it was a thing,” one wrote with laughing emojis.
Another pointed out that magnesium sulfate is a laxative. “Me taking a chemistry class: magnesium sulfate?!?!” they wrote.
There were many hairstylists in the chat who understood the struggle of pushy, uninformed clients. “You just gotta correct them, ‘in the hairstylist world we call it this:’ bc keeping up with these ridiculous names is insane lol,” this user wrote.
Some pointed out that these trendy names are the equivalent to people ordering drinks they saw on TikTok at Starbucks. “It’s the Starbucks specialty drinks of hair stylists problems,” this peron wrote.
The Daily Dot reached out to Van Dam via email.
