Would You Sue a Salon for $50,000 if They Screwed Up Your Hair?

Time to play armchair jury, and have I got a doozy of a case for you. A woman in Oregon, who has been bleaching her hair for 25 years, is suing her salon for $50,000 because her hair started snapping off after her most recent bleaching session.

The woman, Sarah Jane Ward, blames an inept stylist and says she suffered humiliation, depression and had to pay for hair extensions. (She should have checked out this video on doing hair extensions at home, would have saved her some cash.)

The salon claims that Ward ignored a stylist's recommendations and damaged her hair with teasing and flat ironing (I wonder if she was using one of these flat irons?). They also say that since she didn't go bald or suffer a mental health crisis, they shouldn't be responsible.

While we can't give a verdict (we'll leave that up to the jury … and any of you who'd like to comment below), we can give some advice on keeping color-treated hair from turning into a disaster like this:

Avoid heat styling whenever you can and don't use scorching hot water in the shower.

When you do heat style, always use a product to protect hair (like one of these).

Stay out of the sun (or wear a hat when exposed to sun). And look for hair products that contain SPF and are formulated for color-treated hair.

Wash hair less -- it will keep hair from drying out and help color last longer. When you do shampoo, make sure it's with a quality product, like one of these. And always follow up with a good conditioner.

Leave a weekly deep conditioning treatment (these ones are fantastic) on strands for at least 15 minutes to allow it to reach down to your hair's cuticle.

Use a large-toothed comb in the shower while deep conditioning to distribute the product evenly through hair

What is a mother's work really worth?

One of my favorite quotes in Laurie PK's Mother's Day post comes from the eminently quotable Anne Morrow Lindbergh: “By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.”

Add to that the fact that mothering work is unpaid, and it's a double whammy. True words like Lindbergh's are why it's both illuminating and depressing to put a dollar figure to the work mothers do at home. Just in time for Mother's Day, Salary.com has done that in its 9th annual mom salary survey. This year, a stay-at-home mom performing the 10 most popular "mom-job functions" does the work equivalent of a $122,732 salary, up 5 percent over last year's calculations. A mom who works outside the home 40 hours a week does work that equates to an annual cash compensation of $76,184, an 11 percent increase. A lucrative second job--if that second shift were actually a paid gig.

How do the folks at Salary.com arrive at such hefty numbers? First, they take 10 jobs that closely match the multiple jobs moms do at home. Think laundry machine operator, janitor, van driver, housekeeper, computer operator, cook, daycare center teacher, facilities manager, psychologist, and chief executive officer. Then they surveyed 12,150 moms to quantify their hours worked in each role for a typical week. Salary.com's compensation professionals weighted the different responsibilities of the job to determine the average mom's overall total compensation.

The (fake) salaries for mothers increased during a year salary increases are rare because Salary.com's researchers found that moms--stay-at-home and work-outside-the-home--are outsourcing less of the around-the-house jobs and, as a result, are putting in lots of "overtime." According to the survey, the working mom had 17 hours of overtime in addition to her full-time hours both at work and as a mom, and the stay-at-home mom worked 56 hours of overtime, bringing her work week to 96 hours. That's a lot of unpaid work.

So, what's the value in calculating the value of a mother's work if there is no way she'll ever get paid for it? Well, in a culture that assigns value in dollars, it's important to see in black and white the many jobs moms do and how those jobs are valued in the job market. It's also a way for Salary.com to highlight how its tools shed light on how employers set salaries for jobs.

"This is our ninth year looking at the value of mom's work. It has become a popular annual event because it not only recognizes the critical value of what moms do, but educates the public on the key factors that determine what employers are willing to pay for a given job," said Meredith Hanrahan, senior vice president at Salary.com, Inc. "We value the job of mom based on her job description and calculate what an employer would have to pay in cash if they were to hire someone to do all that a mom does."

Want to know what you or a mom in your life should get paid? You can use the Mom Salary Wizard, then create a fake mom paycheck and pay stub to be sent on Mother's Day. But here's the dilemma: Knowing how much a mom should get paid can be a good thing if those around her are recognizing the value of all she does. Or, it could just make her very sad that she can't cash that check for real.

What do you think? Is there value in assigning a dollar value to all moms do?

Five Things It Might Mean When He Won’t Sleep With You

Sure, one of them might be that he’s gay. But probably not…

Last week’s really funny post about guy excuses for turning down sex got me to thinking about why it is men turn down sex. Because like, that’s not our M.O. right? We’re supposed to be willing to sleep with a fire hydrant in lipstick. We’re supposed to be willing to sleep with a fire hydrant without the lipstick. Women are always telling me how it’s no great shakes to get a guy to sleep with them — it doesn’t mean a thing.

But it does. Sometimes, yes, we will mount a mannequin. But other times we won’t even sleep with women we are really into. Here are some reasons why…

5) He’s scared.
Maybe he’s scared that he won’t perform. Maybe he’s kind of afraid of sex, period (it does happen to men, though no man is likely to admit it). Maybe he’s afraid of losing you, and the idea of getting to the next phase of the relationship excites that worry.

4) He doesn’t want you to think he’s a player
I have to admit: every time I ever slept with a woman without having known her and dated her for at least a Presidential term, the woman would afterward say something like, “You probably do that all the time with all kinds of women.” Not true! Or at least not as true as I’d have liked it to be! So in order to ward off that impression, even players will wait until you beg for it.

10 Things He's Thinking When You're Naked

3) He wants to be in control
If he wants it more than you, if you’re withholding it or he perceives it that way, then you have the power. Men are unnerved by that.

2) He Doesn’t Want to Commit yet
I know tons of guys who, after a woman has a why-did-you-lead-me-on talk with them, plead innocence thusly: It’s not like I slept with her. Sometimes men think that, if we haven't slept with a woman yet, we have free reign to behave how we like. Which is an entirely different problem.

1) He really really likes you and doesn’t want to screw this up
Man are we some relaxed cats when we’ve got nothing invested. We’re often at our best, impressing-ladies-wise, when we don’t actually care about the outcome. But when every single thing we do makes us wonder whether you’ll still like us? That’s when we freeze up a little. So look at it as a good sign, as long as you're into us, too.

Has a guy ever refused you sex? Why, you think? Do you ever refuse sex to guys you actually want to sleep with, and why?