“It’s a small price to pay for self-esteem, Michael.”

Sal's idea, Dan's comments. Sorry for the delay...

When it comes to most personal hygiene and cosmetic purchases, I am a reasonable person. I buy a fairly limited number of good- to high-quality products and stick with them. I don’t have drawers full of makeup I’ve used once then forgotten about. I’m pretty good about buying face wash or soap and using it all before I try something different, but there’s one area where I falter and go beyond being reasonable: Hair care products.

Dan: I falter as well.

I don’t know why, but I am constantly tempted to buy new shampoos, conditioners and styling products, no matter how happy I am with my current products. Sometimes my hair needs volume. Sometimes it needs moisture. Sometimes it needs detangling. Sometimes it needs curls or to be straightened. You get the idea. I like to have products appropriate for my needs, and I frequently find that the drugstore varieties don’t all do the trick, which means I have drawers full of hair products from salons. That adds up.

Dan: For 18 years of my life I was perfectly happy using the $2.50 bottle of Suave. You know the one. It’s the 70s green bottle on the bottom shelf. It wasn’t until college, when I had long flowing hair. (Yes, I did have long hair freshman-sophomore year.) I bought into the Herbal Essences commercials (and was disappointed when it wasn’t as orgasmic as advertised) so my hair would smell great.

I know that a lot of this stuff is unecessary, but I don’t really care. You can tell me all the reasons why I shouldn’t buy this stuff and it probably wouldn’t change my mind. Using the proper products for your hair can have a serious effect on how healthy it is. It drives Dan crazy that I have all of this stuff, but clearly I know something he doesn’t, as he’s bald and I still have all of my hair. (Sorry.)

Dan: Some of you might have known that not only am I bald, but I’m bald in weird patches. I was always going to be bald eventually, but I went through a yearlong phase where I wanted to be with the in-crowd, and the in-crowd was bleaching their hair. I couldn’t afford the $40 hairdo, so off to Wal Mart I went. $3.50 for two doses of bleach was, in fact, too good to be true. Hair started falling out soon after.

I like to have a set of volumizing shampoo and conditioner, a set of moisturizing shampoo and conditioner, a bottle of Head and Shoulders (sometimes my head gets itchy), a deep conditioner, volumizing spray, smoothing serum and hairspray. I don’t use all of these at the same time, of course, but it’s nice to always have what I need in stock.

There’s an episode of ‘Arrested Development’ where Michael yells at Lindsay for paying $60 for a bottle of conditioner. In her words, “It’s a small price to pay for self-esteem, Michael.”

I’m not saying that I base my self-value on hair care products, but having a fragrant, shiny, healthy head of hair certainly doesn’t hurt.

Dan: Although my shower is filled with 400 bottles of products, (3 of which are mine) I guess I let it go without much of a fight. My wife looks good, I can live vicariously through her hair, and every now and then my scalp needs a bit of pampering too.