Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

There must be something in the chemical solutions for permanent waves or hair coloring that makes beauty salon owners want to give their businesses off-center names. A look in the local telephone directory confirms this.

I’m browsing under “Beauty Salons” and find Cutting Corners, The Cutting Edge, and The Cutting Room, all in proper alphabetical order. I give the owner of Cutting Corners the benefit of the doubt by assuming the establishment is at two intersections, rather than assuming the name is a mission statement.

I grant that The Cutting Edge implies the most current trends in hair cutting, but that’s not particularly what I want. Haven’t you noticed that a person who works with hair all day has a different idea from yours of what edgy means? And The Cutting Room? Well, this phrase has another life in the world of film, and things usually end up on the floor there because they are not very good.

Running my finger down to the letter ‘S,’ I notice more creativity at work. There is Shear Design, Shear Heaven, and Shear Magic. Don’t salon owners know that shearing is what shepherds do to sheep with a shears, which is a much larger industrial version of a scissors?

Would you want to go to a stylist who didn’t know the difference? Me neither.

My favorite name for a hair salon, however, belongs to a now defunct little shop in Libertyville, Illinois that was called — with apologies to Humphrey Bogart — Hair’s Looking At You. The first runner-up is Curl Up and Dye on Chicago’s north side. Some enterprising salon owner is bound to come up with the idea of combining both names together.