• August 26, 1996
• Vol. 46
• No. 9

Blazing Sideburns

D.C. Barber Pietro Santoro Singes for His Supper

HE HAS BEEN CALLED THE HOTTEST haircutter in Washington, and for once the heat isn't hype. While most stylists make do with a cut and blow-dry, none matches Pietro Santoro's "fire cut." At his seven-seat salon in the Capitol Hilton Hotel, Santoro, 53, uses a lighted candle to trim, style and dry hair. So adept is he that Capital potent-pates, including Pat Buchanan and Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler, have signed on for the 15-minute, $26 procedure (though Kessler "jumped," reports his spokesman, during his first—and last—cut). Motion Picture Association president Jack Valenti has been a client for 15 years. "Pietro helps me avoid bad-hair days," he says, relaxing in Santoro's chair as smoke rises from his head and ash blankets his shoulders. "He has allowed me to keep my hair."

While Santoro doesn't claim his method restores hair, he insists it can preserve what remains. The heat melts the hair's natural oils (or so the theory goes) which then cool to form a protective sheath around each strand. Not everyone concurs. "All it will do is make it smell like hell," says New York stylist Edward Tricomi. Bernard Portelli, owner of Washington's Okyo Salon, disagrees: "I'm truly happy he's recognized for doing something that, when done right, is good for the hair."

Maybe, though there's no scientific proof. The technique has been popular for more than a century and is still widely used around the Mediterranean, where the Sicilian-born Santoro learned his art. Married for 28 years and living in Annapolis, Md., he moved to Washington in 1967 and set up his present shop four years later. "My grandfather told me that one day I'd make it to the top," says Santoro proudly. Still, he admits there is one potential client who would be a cut above all the others. "It would be fun if the President would call," he muses, then adds democratically, "but to me, everyone who walks in my door is like the President."