TV: Tabatha's Salon Takeover

Maybe it's because Mom is halfway through cosmetology school. Maybe it's because repeated viewings of "Project Runway" gave me a slight metro streak. For whatever reason, today's featured TV program is "Tabatha's Salon Takeover," a reality show on Bravo.

The show follows Tabatha Coffey, an Australian hairdresser, as she travels to various foundering hair salons and attempts to turn their businesses around. Coffey competed on Bravo's "Shear Genius" reality show, and, due to her acerbic tongue and hairdressing prowess, quickly became a fan favorite. Now she turns that same biting criticism to other salon owners:



The sarcasm is obviously amped up for TV, but there are good tips here for any aspiring salon owner. Cleanliness is repeatedly emphasized, as is the importance of hard work and training. It's not just hair salons that could benefit from Tabatha's no-nonsense professionalism...if you've ever cringed when eating at a dirty restaurant or walking into a dirty bathroom at an auto mechanic, you'll cheer at these segments.

Every episode of "Salon Takeover" includes a brief period where the Bravo TV staff renovate the salon with a new look. Unlike other makeover shows, though, the budget is limited, so you'll never see Tabatha knocking down walls or adding rooms to a salon. Tabatha also conducts a follow-up visit to the salon six weeks later, to see if her advice did any good.

Without Coffey's famed persona, there wouldn't be much of a show here (my favorite moment was when she delivered a dressing-down to a gay salon owner who refused to take female customers). It is an act, though - in an interview with Maggie Mulhern of Modern Salon, Tabatha displays far more of the famed Aussie mellowness than we see on the show: