BLOWOUT

The International Beauty Show was a big tease

"IT HAVE never seen so many unattractive people in one place in my entire life," declared our friend Milo, the Manhattan Hair Authority.

We were experiencing tease saturation at the New York Coliseum's International Beauty Show, ' 'the most widely attended professional beauty event in the world." This year's theme was "Creative Salon, ' ' and over four hundred trade exhibitors participated, from GiGi Honee full-body wax to Solarnails to Floyd Kenyatta and his U.S. Black Hair Olympic Team.

"It's as if the entire town of Danbury, Connecticut, went do-mad," said Milo. "It's the hair burners' jamboree—I hear America back-combing. Let's go see Eva." The Eva Gaborwig booth was manned by eight leathery molls in matching chain-mail halter tops and wigs christened "Step Lively" and "Gambit" and "Nancy/Newport." "They shouldn't give children I.Q. tests," said Milo. "They should just let them choose a wig. You'd know. Will Eva be here?' ' he asked a representative in a ''CloudTen. ''

"Oh, no," she said. "Eva never comes to trade shows. ' '

"Have you ever met Eva?" asked Milo.

"Oh, yes," she said. "She's a beautiful woman. Did you know she actually started the Elegant Lady Collection to satisfy her own needs?' '

"I don't want to think about it," murmured Milo. "Let's go to the third floor—the Creative Lifestyle Theatre/Competition Arena. ' ' This level glowed with tanning booths, bearing names like Solarama, Bronzelle, and Swedish Gold. "These are tanning beds," said Milo, caressing an iron maiden fitted with ultraviolet bulbs. "They look like those shelves where they keep the Big Macs warm with radiation." A model in white rubber bikini and creasing cellulite stepped into a bed, donning goggles and a dreamy, Malibubound expression.

"Now, when she pops out," said Milo, "she will have aged prematurely and possibly contracted skin cancer. The surgeon general hates these machines. He uses a 14 sunscreen and a parasol. You see, people crave cancer, and they want it boil 'n' serve, in cake mixes and beige cigarettes, and the most direct application of all—styling mousse."

Styling mousse—Milo had hit on the hot skinny of coifdom ' 84. We stood by as a young man (young? man?) in a mink battle jacket with suede panels readied a head for competition. "I'm using a mousse for body and luster," said the stylist. "It'safirm foam. It looks like whipped cream, and you can get a really explosive volume, without the stiffness and clotting of gels or hair spray."

"So, in other words," said Milo, "the mousse has replaced spray in the hair vocabulary. ' '

"Not replaced," scolded the stylist, weaving what appeared to be a coaster into the model's listing Guggenheim of sausage curls, boomerang clips, and Strawberry Fizz Cellophane Rinse. "Mousse is a styling aid. It increases styling ease. ' '

"That poor model," whispered Milo as we moved on. "She had that oinky nose job and now this.

"The challenge of styling," he decided, "obviously lies in the Bantu Curl." The Bantu Curl, along with Dark & Lovely no-lye relaxer and Trendbenders lotion, was part of the black-hair-art revolution which obsessed almost half the show. "Black people have more options," Milo said enviously. "They can straighten, sheen, and re-perm into ringlets. And Michael Jackson has reintroduced lanolin, or Crisco, or whatever that is he bastes his head with. Remember when his hair caught on fire during that Pepsi commercial? There wasn't really an explosion. It was spontaneous combustion— his hair just got too excited.

"Nails are the final frontier, ' ' announced Milo as we approached the Atf/As-magazine booth. Nails bills itself as "the trade magazine for the nail industry," acing out, claimed Milo, Cuticles Today and New Talon. "Show us the future," we asked the booth operator.

"The big news," she confided, "is gold. We have full and demi-tips, in white, pink, and yellow gold, all with partial pave, full pave, and initials." These are gleaming fourteenkarat fingernails which one has laminated over one's existing shreds. Many had swirls of diamond chips, in the manner of rock stars' front teeth, and being able to wash one's hands suddenly seemed hopelessly banal.

"Remember when all those Tootsie secretaries decided to put their initials in the comer of their eyeglasses? Well, this is what they're doing next," said Milo. "And look at these, with the balloons and the clowns on them. I swear, manicurists are the only aware people. Just watch, Julian Schnabel will have broken plates glued on his nails. ' '

"We are not manicurists," cautioned the woman in the booth. "We are nail technicians."

Just then, John Amico's voice boomed out over the floor, and we lurched to the Full Service Salon Learning Center.

"Say it three times, every day, into the mirror: 'I am the greatest!' All right, the left side of the room, say it with me, 'I am the greatest!' " Mr. Amico is an assertiveness trainer and was offering "confidence for the small-salon operator. ' '

"You are the greatest! ' ' Milo howled at Mr. Amico. "Beauty is never easy," he concluded, collapsing into a folding chair, ''especially beauty by the pound. Look at these," he said, gesturing toward a display of tiny fourteen-karat-gold charms meant to dangle from a hole drilled in one's fingernail, giving the impression of freshly harvested mucus.

"They say it all," said Milo, reading the charms aloud. " 'I Love to Blow It,' 'Shear Madness,'and'Hair Is Love.' "

Paul Rudnick