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ROCHESTER MAGAZINE  |  DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE  | CITY NEWSPAPER

PREMIERE ISSUE OF ROCHESTER MAGAZINE JULY-AUGUST 2005 - NANCY O'DONNELL

Hair stylist Stefania Buonomo left Rochester in 1997 for one reason. “I wanted to make a lot of money to help out my dad. I wanted to buy him a car and send him away on vacations.”
Cosmo Buonomo, once a marble cutter in his native Italy, had put in long years as a mechanic at Gleason Works, and Stefania worried about his health.
She headed to New York and landed a job at Frederic Fakkai’s Upper East Side salon, a rarefied world of the $365 haircut and glitterati clientele—Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Debra Messing, Uma Thurman and others. As the apprentice, Buonomo learned to read the cryptic signals of the master stlylists.
“ Sometimes it wasn’t even in words,” she said as she lifted her arm, imitating a sudden dramatic gesture that translated to, “Blow-dry long straight hair perfectly flat.”
Soon Buonomo was tending the waves of supermodel Melania Knauss (now Mrs. Trump III) and Christie Brinkley, sprucing up Maury Povich, executing precision snips to Regis Philbin’s nape, escorting Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon to just the right bottle of apple cider clarifying shampoo. By May 1998, she was making house calls to the likes of Rosie O’donnell, who watched on TV as she won an Emmy (the cut was temporarily suspended for victory cries).
Styling wasn’t all. Buonomo also had to look the part. “I had to be an example of how people want to look,” Buonomo said. “But I couldn’t afford the Prada or Tod.” One client wanted to know where Buonomo got her top. “I didn’t want to tell her, but she kept asking, ‘Where did you get that great top?’ I told her I couldn’t remember, and the next thing I know she’d jumped up and grabbed the neck of my shirt so she could read the label. The she asked, ‘What’s H & M?’”
But one day, Buonomo had an epiphany. “I was walking across the street to buy bottled water, and within the 10 feet I walked, I was surrounded by an ambulance siren, a jackhammer, four cars beeping and a fire truck racing by. I was literally shaking by the time I crossed the street, and that was it. I decided I had to leave.”
She flew to Costa Rica to study aromatherapy. When she returned, she decided to come back to Rochester.
She packed up her lower East Side apartment, a few blocks from the World Trade Center, and started driving early on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The whole way, she never turned on the radio. “When I got to Dad’s house he was crying,” she recalled. “He hugged me and said, ‘I knew you’d be okay.’”
After the shock of 9/11, Stefania was happy to be living with the man she calls the love of her life. But within a few months, her father would be diagnosed with lung cancer. A few months after that, he died.
“ I never felt so alone and desperate,” she said. Once again she took to the road. She traveled to Colorado, worked with spiritual teachers, fasted and meditated. Then she returned to Rochester, deciding this time to stay.
Today, Stefania is the owner of Metro Salon on Gibbs Street, where she works with her sister Marianna—“something my father always wanted”, she said. She plans to mix a little of Manhattan’s edge with a holistic approach she developed out of the experience of her father’s death and her spiritual journeys. She has learned that beauty isn’t just about the right cut. “It’s all about feeling good inside, to feel good by connecting. Since, I’ve come home, I’m connecting.”

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DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE 2006 - HAIR-RAISING TREND - MAELEEKE J. LAVAN

(Stefania Buonomo - Owner of The Metro Salon)

T.C. Pellett wasn't sure just how much he should care about his skin and hair until he met his fiancee. First she gave him input on how to style his hair. Then she introduced him to some skin-care products. "The first time you use it, you don't want to admit it to yourself, but your face and skin feels fantastic," says the 30-year-old Irondequoit resident. After fighting the feeling, he was hooked. Like Pellett, more men are shedding reluctance about hair and skin care in pursuit of the look seen on the pages of GQ or Esquire. They want more than just a wash-and-go haircut when they head to the barbershop on Saturday morning. They want scalp massages, eyebrow trims, manicures, pedicures and facials. Salons are stepping in to accommodate, offering men-specific treatments such as waxing for the back, toes and fingers, and adding manly entertainment such as foosball and big-screen TVs showing ESPN. Cosmetic manufacturers are lining store shelves with skin- and hair-care products packaged in blue boxes that almost scream "blue is for boys."

Moisturizer and toner are part of Pellett's routine, as are regular trips to the stylist for a hair cut and scalp massage. "It really opens up your pores and she styles you up after," Pellett says of the scalp massages he gets at The Metro Salon in Rochester. "For a few days after that your scalp is nice and open and can breathe." Television shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and emphasis on "it" celebrities help guys who want a salon look but aren't sure what, if anything, will be stripped from their masculinity if they take it too far. "If a man sees another man getting (a specific treatment) done, they're more likely to do it themselves," says Stefania Buonomo, owner of The Metro Salon, which offers hair-, nail- and skin-care services to men, as well as women. Buonomo, who opened the salon in 2003 after returning to the area from fashion-forward New York City, says she's noticed Rochester's men slowly but surely catching up to the ways of an increasingly image-conscious nation. Sherry Eiler, co-owner of The Men's Room, a men-only barber/salon in Brighton, says it can take a while before guys venture beyond a haircut and shave. By the third or fourth visit, she says, some are ready to branch out and get a manicure or facial. "We have some gentlemen who come in and say: 'No, no. I don't want that,'" Eiler says. "And we say, 'Why don't you just try it.' You have to educate them and let them know why trying something new is OK." "It's becoming more and more acceptable (to openly care about your looks)," says Chris Carretta, a real estate agent and self-professed metrosexual who's a regular at The Metro Salon. "Guys don't think about it as much as they used to." Carretta, 45, started going to The Metro Salon about a year ago at the suggestion of his female colleagues. He's a huge fan of the scalp massages and will have "an occasional manicure and stuff like that when I have time," he says. [Back to Top]

Look, I know you’re hot. You know you’re hot. But how to show everyone else how very hot you really are? Go see Stefania. She used to handle celebrity hair in New York City with Frederick Fekkai and she moved here recently to be closer to her family. Fred’s loss is our gain. At Stefania’s sleek, relaxed Metro Salon on Gibbs Street, you can get a cosmopolitan look at a hometown price. Plus the music selection—from Dolly Parton to the Flock of Seagulls and beyond—even has those Eastman School kids talking.

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