Clad in an animal-print fur coat and clutching a Céline bag, Gabby Fraenkel has a sleek attitude to match her silky new ’do. She gives herself a once-over in the mirror — and heads confidently toward the register.
“I’ve been getting three to four blowouts a week for as long as I can remember,” says the perfectly coiffed recent college grad from Gramercy Park, sitting in Drybar salon last Monday morning.
“[It’s] something I do for ‘me’ to feel good inside and out,” says Fraenkel, a 23-year-old strategist for an aviation company.
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Her addiction doesn’t come cheap: Fraenkel spends more than 15 percent of her $50,000 salary on biweekly $40-per-visit appointments plus house calls from a hairstylist who charges $65 to cure New York women’s “frizz emergencies.”
She’s not alone. Though exclusive stylist Oscar Blandi was straightening the hair of his wealthy, high-flying clients 20 years ago, an explosion of New York “blowout bars,” which exclusively wash and blow-dry hair, has led to a current surge in women on ordinary salaries getting hooked on the habit.
The chic Drybar debuted in September 2011 in the Flatiron District and has seen a 28.5 percent boost in blowouts over the past year. Another outpost at Le Parker Meridien opened this year: The two NYC locations, along with 14 others nationwide, provide more than 40,000 blowouts a month.
And next month, celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe will debut the new DreamDry in the Flatiron District, while three more Drybar locations will open in Manhattan by year’s end.
When blowouts were first popularized in the ’90s, the aesthetic was stick straight, with no tolerance for flyaways, in the style of Anna Wintour’s unforgiving bob. This A-list look dominated for nearly a decade with stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston becoming archetypes of the ’do. Fashion lightened up on harsh hair in the early aughts when waves and curls returned to the spotlight.
Today’s blowout is more natural and relaxed with body and even (whisper it) a few curls, á la Kate Middleton, whose silky strands are rumored to be blown out three times a week at London’s Richard Ward Salon. Today even women who don’t wear crowns on their heads say it’s a necessary luxury.
“I feel powerful and beautiful when I leave here,” says the Chelsea-based blow-dry addict Kate Herman, 29, who works in advertising.
Up to twice a week for the past decade, she visits Arsen Gurgov, star stylist at the Louis Licari Salon who charges $85 a pop (tip not included) — amounting to tens of thousands of dollars over the years.
“I have to pick and choose,” explains Herman. “On a Thursday night a few weeks ago, I opted out of dinner with my girlfriends at the Lion, but, come the weekend, my hair will look amazing.”
To help buy time — and save money — between blowouts, Herman uses baby powder or drugstore-ready Batiste dry shampoo and always dons a cap in the shower. She even schedules her workouts around her blowout schedule in order to preserve her ’do.
“Women think about their hair like men think about sex,” says Gurgov, who had to expand his hours two years ago to accommodate swelling demand from clients.
Blow-dry addicts fret so much about Gurgov’s physical and mental state that they call the salon in advance to monitor his mood and general well-being. “ ‘He seemed a little tired yesterday. Is he OK today?’ Or, ‘He seemed to be blinking a lot, is he up for this?’ ” laughs Gurgov, “as if I were a brain surgeon performing a life-saving operation on the pope!”
Another Gurgov devotee, NYU senior Jennifer Chaplin of Kips Bay, doesn’t know on which coast she wants to live when she finishes school, but she does know where she’ll be next Tuesday. And Friday.
“I’ve already been here twice this week!” enthuses the Louis Licari enthusiast and theater major with silky brown hair. (This week’s blowout bill of $200 comes out of her monthly allowance, courtesy of Mom and Dad.)
For NYC women on the go, the blowout offers a quick and relatively affordable weapon in the city’s competitive beauty arms race now that the service no longer entails spending a full day at a chichi salon.
At Yani Hair Salon on the Upper East Side, the blank-walled, understated space stands in stark contrast to its fancy competitors. But this doesn’t seem to bother its bread-and-butter clientele of old-school, Birkin-toting UES women seeking a deal. Here, blowouts cost just $25 — $20 for weekly customers.
Owner Yani Fernandez had to double her staff and add four more stylists to keep pace with blow-dry demand over the past 18 months. “Blow-dry business has doubled in the past two years,” she says. “We have 20 clients who come in at least twice a week.”
“I can’t even get an appointment now, and I was one of the originals!” laments longtime Yani loyalist Lauren Pressman, 32, who works in human resources and lives a convenient two blocks from the salon.
“I can’t remember the last time I washed my hair. I’ve been here every week twice a week for five years. This defines me; I’m so known for it,” says Pressman.
After calculating that her blowout addiction has cost her $10,000 over the years, she pauses: “It’s scary to think about, but it’s worth it. It’s definitely an addiction: all the compliments and looking good, it spoils you,” she admits. “I’ve never had a guy compliment my shoes, but a million guys have complimented my hair.
“Nobody talks about it, but it’s this culture of girls who always get their hair blown out,” she continues. “I started doing it before it was acceptable. Back then, I was embarrassed to tell people. I made [around $50,000] when I first came here — not that I make that much more now.”
While for some this trend is new, for Fraenkel it’s an obsession sparked at just 8 years old, when her mother routinely blew out her naturally tight brown ringlets.
“That’s probably when it first started,” she admits.
She runs her fingers through her glossy, straight hair, which a Drybar stylist has blown to a soft wave.
“Now I feel like I can go out and go through the day,” she declares — but not before booking an appointment for next Wednesday.
dlewak@nypost.com