Power of the part

What hair color looks best on you? Your skin tone and eye color will influence this. Your natural color as a youngster is likely close to ideal (I just made that up). Personally I'm so confused by my hair color (is it warm? is it cool?) that I often hope my future head of gray will be my most glorious.

What hair cut looks best on you? You've taken the magazine quiz -the shape of your face, your bone structure, your hair line, your hair type - all of that comes into play. (If only hairdressers could just look at us and KNOW. Then ADVISE.)

Let's say you've figured all that out. Now let's start over - Where should your part be?

For a lot of people it's probably a no-brainer (and a rather asinine topic for a 360 word essay). It is where it is! I remember looking in my bedroom mirror when I was around nine or ten and noticing, that most definitely, my part was on the left. I am someone with a part on the left. The moment is strangely clear as day. Was that a choice I made? Was I copying Debbie Gibson? Did my mom train it there by brushing in that direction for years and years beforehand? I'll never know.

Many more years of skull expansion and perfectionism-shunning later, my part is where it wants to be - on the right for the first centimeter (not too far right), anywhere it wants (haphazardly middle or so) after that. When I coerce it to the left I feel off kilter. It is where it is!

But what part looks best with these eyes and these eyebrows and this facial symmetry and this hairline and these cheekbones and this hair texture and this hair cut? Having recently veered away from my (temporary) signature do, my vanity demands this question loom large.

Cut and color? Those will take years and money to get right. But the part, with its simple power, that I can play with today.

And lastly, if any of you know of a hairdresser who answers these questions with accuracy, however cruel, please let me know! I'm getting more daring with age.