A Different Kind of Plan b

Bad hair and bad decisions have a funny way of coinciding, and Plan b, a boutique hair salon on Mt. Auburn, is doing nothing to separate the two. If anything, it’s adding to the meaning of sex hair.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know about it when I came up with the name,” said Rick J. Fogarty, owner and stylist at Plan b, whose daughter had to fill him in on the fact that his salon shares a name with an emergency contraceptive pill.

For Fogarty, the name symbolized a new approach to his career. After years of working in other people’s salons, he decided it was time to become his own boss. “This was my plan B,” he explained.

And while he found that most people over the age of 30 thought of the term “plan B” by its more conventional definition—as a backup plan—those under the age of 25 had a different, or rather, more specific idea of what that backup plan meant.

Despite Fogarty’s innocent intentions, his salon’s name reveals two surprisingly interrelated concepts: grooming and contraception. Unprotected sex, much like going blond or getting a bob, is an irreversible occurrence, the outcome of which the woman must grapple with for the rest of her life (or until her next appointment).

Fogarty himself has been faced with more literal inquiries. Before the salon had opened its doors to clients, a couple of young women walked in, inquiring about the pill. “I think they thought it was a dispensary or something,” said Fogarty.