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I should have bolted the moment the eager young dresser zeroed in on my “natural waves.”

Mine are not Sarah Jessica Parker’s silky waves or even Debra Messing’s. Mine are uneven, unflattering and frizzy, with a lost-my-hairbrush-a-week-ago quality.

But I had come to this strange new hair salon to pull myself out of a hair rut — to once and for all break my straightening-iron dependency after many, many fai more hair styling products salesperson than hair dresserled attempts. So I let the hair dresser convince me that she could give me a new look. One that — and this is the key — I’d be able to easily replicate at home.

“So let’s see,” the hair dresser said with glee, “what hair styling products shall I use?”

I tend to believe the appearance of one’s hair has more to do with cut than the hair styling product. I’ve tried smoothing serums, conditioning treatments, pomades, grit, creams and lotions of all brands and at all price points with similarly unremarkable results. Sure, some hair styling products smell nicer than others. But no matter what I use, my hair ends up looking the same.

This new hair dresser, however, was pushing the hair styling products, and hard. So hard that I finally asked if she was actually going to cut my hair or just load it with hair styling products. She absently snipped, all the while sounding like an Aveda infomercial. When she had finished making me look like a poodle crossed with Nicole Richie, she met me at the counter with a pile of bottles and tubes. She didn’t ask if I wanted to buy them; she simply thrust the stuff toward the cashier.

I told her I wasn’t sure if the $30 — $30! — diffuser would fit on my hair dryer. She told me to take it home and try it.

I pointed out that the Elements Smoothing Fluid looked a lot like the Brilliant Emollient Finishing Gloss I had at home. She insisted one was much thicker than the other.

I said I already owned Aveda’s Brilliant Universal Styling Cream , which must be similar to the Be Curly Enhancing Lotion she wanted me to buy. Miraculously, she didn’t argue.

Eager to get out of there and never return, I paid $20 for the Elements Smoothing Fluid. That overpriced hair styling product glares at me every time I open the medicine cabinet, symbolizing yet another bad hair day. The unpleasant experience has left me wondering: Are hair salons grooming new hires to be more salesperson than stylist?

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