The Connection

David Smith snuggles into his mother's lap with a big grin, clutching his white doggie in one arm and his light blue teddy in the other. Faith Sheehan sprays a fine mist of water on his hair in preparation for his hair cut. Sheehan has tucked David into a child-size plastic apron to keep the itchy hair from creeping inside his sun suit. His mother, Alice Curtin-Smith said, "This is his third official haircut although I tried to do it myself, and it was terrible." David's head turns one direction, then another, following Sheehan as she moves around the chair with her haircutting scissors. "He's doing great," she said to Curtin-Smith.

Sheehan says this is a three-generation family for her. Janice Curtin, the grandmother, sits against the wall waiting to entertain David while his mother gets her haircut next. In some families they "have similar hair. But here Janice has naturally curly hair while Alice and David and the other sister, Katie, in Tokyo, have straight. I like to have multi-generational families," she added. Sheehan has been at London Bob Hair Design on Washington Street for 14 years and says she started cutting Curtin-Smith's hair before she went to college and law school.

"Now Alice is back. And I like to come here for childcare advice," Curtin-Smith said. "Like last time I found out from Faith, who is the mother of three, how to give David a bath and wash his hair without getting soap in his eyes by using a little visor."

Sheehan and Curtin-Smith discuss today's cut, another long bob with lots of layers? "I'm open. Do you think I should change the color?" Sheehan tells Curtin-Smith that her hair is a beautiful color and now might not be the time to wrestle with highlights with a small baby and a demanding part-time job.

Sheehan says the hardest thing she ever had to do was to cut a little girl's long hair into a pixie against her will at her mother's urging: "She was very upset."

Sheehan says it was very nerve wracking in the beginning when she was just starting as a hair stylist. But by now she has cut hair for nearly 20 years after her best friend convinced her to do what she had always really liked instead of continuing in school.

"I am conservative. If you want an inch cut, I will show you what that will mean to the whole haircut when you are finished and make sure you understand what it will be," she said. But she thinks that requests for a new style today are often based on a famous person like a movie star or something like the Bryce Harper look. "If you bring me a picture, so I know what you like, I can try to get a version of it," she said.

And the curly, messy look is popular, too. Her pink I- phone buzzes on the shelf in the corner. "That will be my daughter going to gymnastics," she said. Sheehan pulls up a long strand of Curtin-Smith's warm brown hair and nips into the edges with scissors. "I am texturing the layers to give the hair movement. We are creating a style; we don't want it to look boring," she said.

Over the years Sheehan has seen changes in techniques such as "doing a lot more with the razor" and changes in color such as a new more natural chromatic color with no ammonia.

She looks at Curtin-Smith: "Fluff around the face. Fun."

Sheehan says that most people request the same cut every time but there is also a lot of experimentation. She works Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. and Saturday 8 a.m.-3 p.m. She points to her appointment book with red blocks for haircuts, blue for foil and green for color: "I average about 12 appointments a day." Most of her clients now are from referrals. "I think it is as much as connecting with people as the haircut. I love listening," she said.

Sheehan has taken out the curling iron and is framing long wavy, messy curls around Curtin-Smith's face. "I was a little skeptical, but I like it," Curtin-Smith said. "Next time I'll be ready for bangs."