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| - All the women in my family, self included, have kinky, frizzy, Mediterranean hair. Normally, you'd go to a salon for advice on styling products, but I'm cheap as f*ck (and I feel weird having my head touched by hairdressers) so shopping for hair products in Pittsburgh tended to present major challenges. Giant Eagle carried overpriced shampoos, dyes, and mousses intended for straight Caucasian hair and loaded with alcohol and sulfates that make my hair dreadlock, dry out, and break off. The pharmacies, like Rite Aid, occasionally offered hair dye for curly and kinky hair types, but typically in very, very few colors, if they sold it at all.
Until I found Modern Hair Beauty Supply, I had given up on showing up to client meetings looking polished and business-like or styling my hair in Pittsburgh's humidity without looking like a frizz-puff. But the moment I found Modern Hair, I fell in love. Especially for a small city, this store delights. So, so many rows of products, including hair butters, puddings, gels, sprays, dyes, and anything else you could ever want, most of them made with natural ingredients, like pure coconut oil or papaya extract. The wigs rock too, with a huge selection, and my only regret with them is that I didn't buy a couple before I left town.
Modern Hair also sells cosmetics, which are as vibrant and exciting as Sephora's makeup lines, at one-eighth the price. (I suspect they stock the same eyeshadows, sans the Sephora branding, and buying multiple pots of color has only increased my suspicion.) After I hit up the hair aisles to grab my dye (Dark N' Lovely) as well as my mango-olive oil mousse, I'd usually get a black eyeliner pencil and try a new shade of shadow or lipstick. The store was always busy on Saturdays, and it seemed to be a hit among female East Liberty shoppers. My husband, who's first-generation American with a noticeable Baltic accent and naturally straight, white-blonde hair loved this store too. He'd pick up a belt, or cosmetics for his modeling gigs. I even bought a pair of knockoff Chuck Taylors once, for way less than I'd pay at any of the shoe stores in East Liberty. The saleswomen and salesman are super-helpful and friendly, too.
Modern Hair Beauty Supply gets four and a half stars from me. I'd give it five if the store stayed open 'till 9 Mon.-Fri., offered longer Saturday hours, and/or were open on Sunday.
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