Babylon's Village Vanity salon class teaches dads to do daughters' hair

Don Hartley, 40, a project manager from Lindenhurst, wears his own hair pulled back into a ponytail. But he signed up for a class at Village Vanity in Babylon to learn how to successfully tie one for his daughter, Lily, 4.

"You know how you could tie your own shoes, but you go to tie someone else’s and think, ‘Why isn’t this doing the same thing?’" He desperately needs guidance, he says.

"All the sports Lily is in, it has to be done up and tied tight," he says. She takes Jujitsu, lacrosse, soccer, dance, gymnastics. "I just don’t want it to look like, ‘Oh, Dad did this.’"

Hartley was joined by two other girl-dads for a recent two-hour class that schooled them in how to get out knots and how to make a low ponytail, a half-up/half-down do, a high ponytail and a bubble ponytail. When Village Vanity owner Alexa Scopo posted on Instagram advertising the initial "Dad’s Night Out: Pints and Ponytails" class for $55, the response was robust enough that she added three additional sessions in April and May and is hoping this summer to add an advanced session on making braids. 

ADDING TO THE DAD SKILL SET

Women might think it’s elementary to create a ponytail because they’ve been doing it their whole lives, Scopo says. "I think it’s harder than we as women think," Scopo says. "We know how intuitively. A lot of these men don’t because they’ve never had to. They’re wrestling to get the hair done. They’re fighting with their kids because it hurts." They could try watching YouTube videos, but nothing beats a hands-on session, she says.

The fathers say they struggle with, for instance, symmetry — the ponytail always lops to one side of the head or the other. Or they don’t know how to pull the ponytail tight enough — or are pulling so tight that it’s painful, eliciting cries of "Da-a-a-d!" Or too many loose fly-away hairs don’t make it into the hairdo.

"You want to be as helpful a parent as you can," says Doug Milstein, 44, a Realtor from Amityville who has two daughters Maya, 4 and Eden, 1. "But this is something I’m not helpful at. I’m making it worse."

With Blue Moons and Coronas on ice in the hair sink, Doritos and Cheetos on the counter, and mannequin heads clamped to a table, class begins with the men learning how to get knots out of their daughters’ hair. "So you’re not ripping your child’s hair out," Scopo says.

"You know how much yelling and screaming you could have avoided if I’d known this years ago?" says Tom Willdigg, 47, a detective from Massapequa, as he follows the directions to hold the hair firmly at the top and then gently comb from the bottom to release the tangle gradually.

Willdigg has two daughters — Mary 12, in seventh grade and Lily, 10, in fifth grade. He says he’s great at a lot of the tasks that parents tackle in the morning — he helps his daughters with their outfits, makes breakfast, ensures they’re on time for school.

But the hair is his nemesis. "I do it now, just not good," he says. "I just thought it would be nice to add to the skill set. I think most dads now do everything a parent needs to do. As a dad of daughters, I think they should see their father doing stuff like this."

Hartley's wife Lauren Catapano, 41, a restaurant manager who works at night, said her husband being able to do her daughter's hair is one less thing she has to do in the morning, letting her sleep in. Lily is also excited about her dad's new skill. "She told everybody this weekend that my daddy can do my hair now," Catapano said in an interview after the class.

‘GATHER AT THE NAPE’

Scopo advances the men to trying a low ponytail. "Gather the hair at the nape of the neck," she instructs.

"Where is that?" Milstein asks.

"At the bottom," Scopo says.

"These are good for bicycle helmets," Willdigg tells Milstein.

"You all have hair ties in front of you. Pick up one of them," Scopo continues. "You want it in your dominant hand."

After the low ponytail, the men learn the half-up/half-down style. "I can’t get over it. It looks like something fancy," WIlldigg says of his handiwork. "This is pro-Dad level stuff. My wife’s going to be blown away."

When they learn the bubble ponytail, which involves using extra hair-ties to create little poofs down the length of high ponytail, Scopo tells the men to hold the ponytail up from the bottom "like it’s a fish you just caught" as they add on the new hair ties.

"Doug, you’ve come a long way since the beginning of this class buddy," Willdigg says encouragingly, surveying Milstein’s bubble ponytail.

"You’re jealous when you look at mine, aren’t you?" Milstein ribs.

Class ends with Scopo telling the fathers how proud she is of them, asking them to send pictures when they do their daughters’ hair, and with Hartley grabbing his phone so he can check the score of a sports game.