Melissa Algood is my guest blogger today. I’ve read her new debut novel, Blood On The Potomac, and it’s outstanding. It will be available this month on Amazon. I know you’ll enjoy her blog.
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If there was a superlative in high school for a least likely to become a hairdresser I would’ve earned it-yet that’s what I’ve become.
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When I first moved to Houston I would see a myriad of hairdressers that frequented the coffee shop I worked in the Rice Village. They seemed so confident, professional, and of course beautiful I wanted to be just like them. That’s why I took the advice of a friend and picked a direction then went full force. I graduated from cosmetology school the top of my class; I was a member of the National Technical Honor Society but that wouldn’t prepare me for working behind the chair with actual clients. It was harder than I expected dealing with their emotional baggage (we are after all a ‘cheap’ shrink) while making sure their hair looks perfect in order to make them feel better about said emotional baggage
It became my job to make you look pretty. It started off rather rocky looking for a place to call home, but I finally found a quaint salon in Montrose. They accept my quirkiness including my obsession with ‘Game Of Thrones’, overpowering need to talk rather than work in silence, and the many phrases I use in lieu of cursing (which include: Holy Cannoli, Awesome Blossom, and Good Gravy). I didn’t realize how often I used those phrases until a few of my co-workers pointed it out to me, even booking a fake client for a ‘holy cannoli’ service. After working there only a few weeks they already knew I was eccentric, but could take a joke. One of my co-workers who brings her handsome sons to the salon on occasion told me that her kids now cannot say the words ‘good gravy’ without thinking of me.
My amazingly talented co-workers are also willing to help me not only formulate with Aveda, which is a new color line to me although I’ve been doing hair for seven years, and teach me some techniques they’ve learned along the way. We joke with each other, but in the end we’re pretty much family, each of us striving to become the best we can be.

Green Apple Salon Montrose is by far my favorite salon to work, but that’s not to say I didn’t love my previous coworkers. Especially one of my great friends, and fellow author Chantell Renee. Without her I would’ve never join the Houston Writers Guild nor what I have written my debut novel Blood on the Potomac which has earned 4.7 stars on Amazon. The salon community is not much unlike the writing community; in that you know people from all ranges of skill and success and you all work together for one common goal. In the writing world it’s to make sure that people read your stories and feel some sort of emotional connection to your characters. In the hair world it’s to make people feel beautiful and more confident all while keeping them on trend. Thankfully at my salon no one is above education and we have in-salon training frequently which I thoroughly enjoy because the educators have often designed their own product line, color line, or their only or their own concept of haircutting.
It was during one such salon training session that our story begins. My bosses bosses boss one of the most elite hairdressers in the Aveda world came in to teach us a hair coloring technique that he designed along with several formulations he designed as well. When the salon owner Anthony told us during one of our weekly meetings that Alberto would be coming in to train us several of the stylists became giddy. I didn’t know who he was, but I figured if he had helped develop aspects of the Aveda product line that we use that he was probably pretty damn good at hair.
The day of the training session all the stylists from my salon, and our sister salon Green Apple Salon Baytown, went into the nail tech’s room and waited for Alberto to share his knowledge with us. He started off by having us talk about our salon history, and a little about ourselves. Since I was sitting closest to him in the semi-circle, the muscular man with an awesome fade started with me.
“I’m Mel, and I’ve been doing hair for seven years, worked with Goldwell, Redken, and TG (all hair color lines). I’m also an award winning author…”
Alberto’s dark eyes lit up, “Oh, what do you write?”
“Poetry, flash-fiction, short stories, and my debut novel Blood On The Potomac just came out.”
Alberto’s assistant’s mouth dropped when I mentioned the title, but Alberto continued to look only at me as he smiled. “What’s it about?”
And for the rest of the class I forgot I was speaking to a man that was in charge of an entire region of the United States and toured internationally throughtout the world. “It’s about a spy whose best friend is murdered, he meets up with an assassin who’s also searching for her father’s murder, and she’s super crazy. I mean she rips a guy apart for throwing a beer bottle at her! Basically there’s lots of violence, ton of sex, and mystery as they search for their loved ones killers.” Then realizing maybe I shouldn’t have talked about so much blood and guts. “Sorry I get super awkward like all the time.”
Alberto chuckled, “That’s okay. Sounds like a good book.” He then moved on to the next stylist as I sipped more coffee only making me more hyper.
Throughout the four hour-long classes I would sporadically shout something like “OMG that is so freaking awesome!” or “Good gravy you just totally changed my whole life!” I wasn’t necessarily saying anything bad, but pretty much everything Alberto did during the class blew my mind, and I couldn’t help but shout out my inner monologue to the whole group. For instance when Alberto projected on the screen some of his hair color formulas he asked us not to share it on social media, and I retorted, “Man, but I already posted it on Grinder.”
The class, and our instructor, laughed and one of my co-workers explained to the stylists that hadn’t met me before, “That’s just Mel.”
My eccentric witty repartee culminated when Alberto spent the last bit of the class answering any questions we might have. He told us that when lifting the hair we needed to make it lighter than we intended, because then we could always tone it down, rather than shampooing the color out to early and the client’s hair is still too dark. At this point I’d finished my coffee and said, “You know it, girl!” louder than I’d intended.
For a moment the entire class was silent, just long enough for me to wonder if I’d be fired for physically being unable to keep my mouth shut, but then everyone laughed.
Alberto is coming in for another class with us in the next few months; I think I’m going to ask for one less shot in my coffee that morning.
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You can find out more about my writing by visiting my blog https://melalgoodauthor.com or you can check out pictures of my clients after I work my magic on their hair https://www.instagram.com/melalgood/
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Melissa (Mel) Algood is a Navy Brat who’s moved over ten times in her life from Puerto Rico to Annapolis, but she’s made Houston, Texas her home. She lives with her longtime love Israel where they binge watch T.V., cook TexMex, and play with their tuxedo cat Madame Bijou.
She attended Marymount University where she studied History and worked as an editor on the newspaper and literary magazine. She graduated from San Jacinto South earning cosmetology student of the year. Ever since she’s published a novel, earned several awards for her writing, all while making bad hair days history in southern Texas.