Hair Lair: A reporter goes under the scissors at the high-toned new Prive salon at the Bellagio

Kimberley McGee

Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1999 | 11:01 a.m.

I'm letting my sun-damaged, wind-brutalized tresses go under the knife, but I'm skeptical: What can this salon do that is different -- and up to six times more expensive -- than a local hair salon?

"(Clients) leave and say 'Oh my God! I didn't think I could look like this,' " says Michael Boychuck, colorist and partner in Prive, the salon chain based in Hollywood that services the stars. "Everyone has something that makes them beautiful. We bring that out."

It has been said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," but at the new Prive salon in the Bellagio Hotel, they maintain that beauty, for everyone, is just a few snips away.

"Isn't this incredible?" Boychuck -- a prelude to the star stylist to come -- says, sweeping his gloved hand from the mosaic-tiled floors to the soft muraled ceilings.

Boychuck is a six-foot-tall, blond, spike-haired colorist raised in the world of hair by famed stylist Jose Eber. He has massaged shimmering color into the hair of such celebrities as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jenny McCarthy, Yasmine Bleeth and Rick Springfield. His blue eyes are focused on my face, flashing to my hair quickly, making mental notes, while he discusses his beauty philosophy and the salon's purpose.

"Everybody, when they come at you, there is something strong about them," Boychuck says, lifting the ends of my just-below-the-shoulder length hair. "If it's their eyes, 'How do you pull their eyes out more?' You work with what someone has, you don't just try to create something. Everybody has got something to bring out."

This philosophy, that the spirit of the individual is the source of inspiration -- is the salon's raison d'etre. No uniformity here.

"I don't want everyone wearing the same shirt, everybody having the same philosophy," Boychuck says. "Everybody here is an individual, clients are individuals -- why would we want to be so closed like that?"

Large mirrors, walls painted a muted cream, rose and yellow, and the lack of clutter give the salon an ethereal quality. The personnel, standing before bare stations, don't seem to be working, but rather consulting with friends on what they should do with their hair.

"When you find a good stylist, you don't want to lose them -- their company, personality and established (relationship)," says Kelley Donahue, executive editor for American Salon Magazine, a professional trade magazine for the beauty industry, about Prive's Hollywood clientele.

It's a matter of trust, she says, to go into a salon and know that your outside image, as well as privacy, will be in good hands. "Chairside manner" is just as important as talent.

The haute-hip Prive salon opened at Bellagio Oct. 15, bringing the first big-name hair salon to Las Vegas. The Hollywood Prive features famed Hollywood hair stylist Laurent D., who caused much buzz in the beauty world when he cut Gwyneth Paltrow's long locks to inch-long wisps.

"(Laurent) handles the in-crowd, he is among the who's who of stylists," Donahue says.

Catering to clientele that ranges from celebrities to the girl-next-door, Prive is more expensive than most salons, charging $60 for a haircut, and counts pedicures, manicures, makeup techniques and make-overs among its bevy of beauty offerings.

"In terms of facilities, it is one of the most exquisite that I've seen," Donahue says. "It's unique in that the way they (usually) put styling stations, you are in a group. (Prive Las Vegas) is very conducive to privacy, very relaxing, you don't feel crowded."

Each styling station is separated by cream-colored walls, and the high ceilings and carefully placed structures give a feeling of intimacy.

"It's one of the profesional beauty industry's true masterpieces," Donahue says. "It flows very nicely."

Hair today

"It's not who you are that matters, it's the hair," Boychuck says. "It's your biggest accessory. How you style it says how you feel at that moment."

He disappears behind me into a separate room devoted to hair color mixing. Boychuck comes back quickly with a personalized color concoction he believes will be perfect for my face and skin, explaining: "Different tones can make you feel more bright, more alive."

Without consulting me, he begins to massage a dark liquid he has chosen onto my dry hair, pulling slightly at the crown, looking deep into the ... hair?

"I can see the tones, the warm colors in your skin and I know what's going to happen," he says. Is this a pyschic reading? "It's chemistry. I'm choosing the right strength of peroxides so you don't get too much -- so your hair stays shiny."

We talk, both looking in the mirror as he rubs and plays with the ooze.

"I just enjoy (color)," he says. "You've got to look at the eye color, the skin color, you can go for a wide range of colors, but again, it has to be the right tone for the skin, the right warmth."

Boychuck was inspired by the 1975 movie "Shampoo" -- with Warren Beatty as an amorous hairdresser -- and, after a decade with local Florida salons, the young, licensed hair stylist wrote a letter to Eber, asking if he could study with him in Los Angeles.

"He wrote me back ... he said not to come," Boychuck says. "I sent him a bottle of Dom Perignon wine and said 'You know what, thanks for motivating me, if you are ever in Florida, please stop in.' He called me and said, 'when are you coming?' "

At first, Boychuck was star struck, but by the time he began making house calls to "Melrose Place" stars Josie Bissett and her husband, Rob Estes, for hair treatments, he had settled into his star-studded surroundings.

"They are making cookies while I do their hair," he says, explaining that his rise in the industry came from just enjoying his work and doing the best he could. "Everyone wants good work. If you focus on what you do, everything just comes to you."

Two years ago, Boychuck joined Laurent D. at Prive in Hollywood, to keep his career -- which he says is also his life -- exciting.

"I'm scared a lot of times when I make some of the moves I make, but you just think this is the next step," says Boychuck, who spends Wednesday through Saturday at the Prive Las Vegas, then flies to Hollywood to cater to regulars and celebrity coifs.

And it is time for my next step. Elizabeth Howard, Boychuck's Las Vegas assistant, gently rinses the purple-brown gel from my hair and we discuss Las Vegas. Born and raised in the Las Vegas valley, the 19-year-old had qualms about working in a salon.

"It can be gossipy," she says. "Here everyone is really nice. I love coming to work in the morning, and I am not a morning person."

And a top-rated salon is a dream to be involved with, she says.

"I never thought we'd have something as big as this (in Las Vegas)," she says.

"Big" as in Phillipe Bevan, the French, international hair stylist who has been featured in the fashion runway shows of Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Herve Leger, held the World Champion Hairdresser title many times over and been named by the French Government as the Ambassador of French Hair Stylists.

And now he's going to cut my hair.

Bevan begins

"Ooh, you will love it, what we are going to do," Bevan exclaims in a thick French accent. "Girls at work, they will ask you where you got your hair done and they will want it, too."

It's geometry that makes a good haircut, he says, as he begins to assess the structure of my head by gently massaging my scalp, lifting handfuls of hair and tucking them around my face, and finally pushing firmly against the bone at the base of the skull. It may lull the client, but it's all math to the stylist.

"You have to play with the form of the scalp," Bevan says, his fingers deftly manuevering over my entire head before deciding where to cut. "If it's flatter (on the side) you have to give it more length so that it lays (fuller)."

Cindy Crawford and Salma Hayek have let Bevan loose with their glossy manes.

"If I say they should have one thing, but they want (their own) and I don't think it's so good, I rather them go to another stylist," Bevan says. "I look at my work like a helper, creator, artist for sure."

He believes, as do most at the salon, that the client makes the job exciting: No head of hair -- or personality -- is the same.

"I give you one haircut and someone else comes in, they say, 'I want that haircut,' but it (doesn't) work for them, their shape is different," he explains.

The goal is to bring out the hidden beauty, even in such beauties as Elisabeth Shue, Tea Leoni and Sharon Stone.

"Women come in and say 'Oh, my nose, my face,' but they are beautiful," he says. "You are cute, we just have to show you how you are cute."

Bevan declares: "You will exit from this shop with my haircut on your face and you must look beautiful. If a lady, she is happy, she enjoys her haircut, she will go from here, she will see her friend and say, 'Look, look what he did!' That is our business, to make people happy, feel they are beautiful."

Boychuck strolls nonchalantly through the 7,800-square-foot, state-of-the art salon, offering refreshment from their expensive capuccino machine, donated by Bellagio owner Steve Wynn, whose company, Mirage Resorts, is responsible for the creation and design of the salon's space.

"It's amazing, you have to try it, the thing cost $16,000 -- can you believe it?" Boychuck says.

He brings back a frothing cup, still shaking his head over the costly amenities.

"(Wynn) did all of this," he says. "If he doesn't like something -- boom, it's (changed). Done to perfection."

Boychuck perches on the stone-tiled counter in front of the mirror, as Bevan begins cutting my hair.

"It's so exciting," Boychuck says of the Las Vegas Prive. "A lot of people, when they start doing hair, they get into having an image -- we are the punky salon, we're the elegant salon, we are the fashion salon. Our salon is not like that in any way. We are the individual salon."

Amanda Bates, a Los Angeles Prive customer, has come to Las Vegas to get her hair highlighted by Boychuck.

"This is just an excellent salon," Bates says. "Los Angeles has a great energy, but here it's more relaxed."

'Keep the energy going'

Boychuck's commuting between the California and Las Vegas salons pays off for customers. "The other day Laurent was cutting Gwyneth Paltrow's hair (in Hollywood) and everybody is looking at her and Nicki (Six) pulls up in his Ferrari and he walks in with orange hair out to here," Boychuck says. "It's totally different kinds of looks going on.

"I can bring that energy back with me and say 'Oh, we just did this and I want to try it on you, I want to share it with you.' You keep the energy going."

And this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship between the famous folks of fashion and Las Vegas.

"Most of the hotels have salons, but it's just basically people from the local town," Donahue says. "Now that (Prive) is there ... you'll see other top names put their names in lights out there."

Boychuck adds: "Our salon is accommodating to everyone -- it's fun for us to make people feel better."

I leave the salon with a bouncy new 'do and feeling as if I'd spent an hour with friends over coffee. The next day, I accomplish my new style alone in front of the mirror and walk out the door with a little thrill.

Before the Prive experience, I had "hair."

After, it's an "expressive accessory."

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