Want to know what it sounds like when a swarm of teenage girls gets to take over a fancy salon and spa so they can get their hair done like magazine models and have their nails painted with Charged Up Cherry polish and get all made up by professionals and it costs, like, no money or anything?
Are you sure?
Well, it's really high-pitched, like when you turn the bass down and the treble up on your car stereo and then plug in your iPod and crank the volume on Kelly Clarkson's new pop song about some boy or another and, you know, super fun!
"You can do your hair like this now!"
"That! Is! Super! Cute!"
"Look at Jackie's hair, guys! She looks so cuuuuuuute!"
"Who wants to go next?"
"Ooooh! Me-me-me!"
"Brittany! Look at my hair!"
"Ooooh! It looks soooo cute!"
This is, like, a big deal.
"Any teenage girl would be excited. I was jumping up and down and screaming all day," said Amber, a 15-year-old with freckles, red-brown hair and a new coat of shiny polish on all 10 fingernails.
She was one of 18 girls from St. Jude's Ranch for Children in Boulder City to be treated like a top model Monday at Seva Salon & Spa, on South Eastern Avenue near the Las Vegas Beltway.
St. Jude's cares for about 60 kids, interim director Arnold Valdez said. They've all been abused, abandoned or neglected. Mostly, their parents have drug problems or are in prison.
They don't get to go out much. Their lives are pretty much homework, the ranch, counseling, that sort of thing.
"Some of these girls," Valdez said, "this may be the only time they get to do something like this."
And so this trip, this day out, this bit of normalcy, meant a lot to them.
It was provided by the spa and by Miss United States 2008, Brittany Williams.
Williams, 25, lives in Las Vegas. She's made improving girls' self-esteem her top issue, the platform she's going to work on during her tenure.
She plans on going to graduate school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas when her year with the crown is done. She wants to go into counseling.
As beautiful as she is -- she kind of looks like a young Vanessa Williams -- she said she grew up with self-esteem problems. She didn't think she was attractive, all that stuff.
It's a terrible way for a girl to live, she said.
The girls crowded around Williams at first, quiet. She divided them into groups: Hair, makeup, nails, and the little ones for a session with her.
She had the youngsters list their favorite qualities about themselves.
"My red hair," said a redhead, Ameerah, 8
"My eyes," said 9-year-old Adelina.
Over in the makeup room, the girls didn't want to talk.
Angela, 13, bounced her leg up and down. She fiddled with her cell phone, spinning it with fingers that had nails painted black. She didn't make much eye contact.
But then Aubrey Engelby started doing her makeup. Angela smiled. She laughed a little bit. The other girls began to laugh too. Slowly, they took it all in. It was fun.
In the hair room, Jacqueline, 16, was getting her long, dark hair washed. She said she wanted it shorter. It had been a long time since she'd had it cut.
She got bangs and a full-body 'do that you might see on a red carpet somewhere.
The girls crowded around, the results becoming real, their turn coming up.
"So cute!" they said.
"Who's next?"
"Me-me-me!"
Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.
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