ROSEBUD : Artesia Hairstylist’s Unique Designs Put Her a Cut Above the Rest

Gloria (Rosebud) Vasquez snapped on rubber gloves and happily poured peroxide on the dark blond hair of a male customer who wanted it “white on top,” a request that she did not find bizarre.

She had worked on his head only recently; one side looked buzzed and was still imprinted with decorative lines etched in the style of rap singer M.C. Hammer.

“Does it burn yet? How white do you want it, falling-out white?” she asked in her booth at The Barbers in Artesia one afternoon last week.

The peroxide was of medium strength, although it smelled stronger.

“I think this is fun,” said Vasquez, 25, of Downey. “Short, medium and long gets a little boring after awhile. I like it when they walk out with big ol’ smiles, proud of their new haircuts.”

Although the vast majority of people come into the shop on Pioneer Boulevard for conventional haircuts, owner Bob DeSarro said, “You describe it, we’ll do it.” He started barbering 30 years ago when flattops, Princetons and pompadours were fashionable.

“I believe in individualism among our stylists, and Rosebud is the ultimate individual,” said DeSarro, who hired her four years ago after she left another shop, bored with giving permanents to an endless parade of older women.

Thumbtacked to The Barbers’ walls were enlarged photos of men, women and children showing off various hairstyles. But none resembled what Vasquez creates.

A creation herself, she was attired in sneakers, tight cycling shorts, a pink tank top and fuchsia socks that matched her long fingernails. She was also laden with jewelry--eight rings, five bracelets, a necklace and six earrings, one of which had a heart at the end of its chain and dangled to her shoulder.

A rose tattoo--with her boyfriend’s name (Carlos) bisecting the stem--was on her back.

Her hair, which has been blue, fuchsia and stop-sign red, was its original black. “My boyfriend is pretty conservative,” she explained.

Vasquez reached for snapshots she had taken of some of her customers.

“This guy’s a high school swimmer,” she said, showing a photo that confirmed that Mohawks are among her specialties. “He wanted KROQ on one side and a lightning bolt on the other. He just sat down and I started going at it.”

The high stretch of hair that bordered the shaved, decorated sides looked, in one profile shot, like the edge of a field of windblown golden wheat.

“Sometimes I wonder how they don’t get kicked out of their homes,” said Vasquez, the mother of two young girls. “But I’ve had only one kid get in trouble. He wanted his tail dyed fuchsia to match his bug (car). His mother said, ‘Take it off or you’re out.’ That’s sad, it’s his hair. So a friend cut it off. It was a Monday and we were closed.”

Another picture showed a boy with a bright yellow Mohawk. He had wanted it white, but the agony became too much.

“He was screaming because of the bleach,” Vasquez said. “His buddy was squeezing his hand, saying, ‘You can take it, you can take it.’ He took it as long as he could.”

In the chair, Mike Coil, 24, of Cerritos, whose hair was being bleached, winced as the chemicals did their job.

While waiting for the bleaching to take full effect, Vasquez sat and drank from a bottle of French water.

“I should do something for the Fourth of July--red, white and blue,” she mused as Alex Castro, 65, a barber from the old school, walked by shaking his head as he swept out the hair of his last customer.

Many of Vasquez’s customers are “kids from Gahr (High School) and Alpha Beta (the supermarket down the street),” but she has much younger ones. “I did a flattop on a little kid yesterday; he wasn’t 1 year old yet,” she said.

It was in this shop where Vasquez learned to do a flattop. “They taught me,” she said, referring to DeSarro and, in their respective booths, Louie Campos, Don Clark and Corina Scales.

“End of the Innocence” played on the radio as Coil’s new hairstyle glowed under the fluorescent lights.

“It’s more of an orangutan orange,” Vasquez decided. “You’re bright, you’re neon.”

He looked in the mirror, thanked her and left.

Between customers, Vasquez complained that business has been slow lately because, “everybody wants to look normal for graduation. The worst part of the job is waiting for victims to come in.”

Her dream is to have someone come in and say, “Do what you want.”

“I’d like to do somebody’s logo on their head,” she said. “A yuppie with a logo.”

A man in a shirt and tie came in, but told her what he wanted. With the barest trace of disappointment, she cut a little off the top and off the sides.

But her next customer was Anthony Ramirez, 25, of Cerritos, a sales clerk at a home improvement center. He wanted some lines.

Vasquez shaved the sides, then, with her clippers, etched a design that resembled a maze.

The hair left on top of Ramirez’s head was black and luxuriant; she combed it and tied it in a ponytail.

She stood back to admire this work of art, which normally goes for $13.50.

“This looks so hot,” she said. “You like it?”

“Yeah, I do, you don’t have to convince me,” he said. “Wow, it’s neat.”

“Well, thanks for being my victim,” she said.

Ramirez walked proudly away, his stylist calling after him gaily, “I hope you don’t get fired.”