COLUMBIA, S.C. - Many battered women find their way into the chair at a beauty salon one time or another, relying on their hairdresser to dry away tears, hide a patch of torn-out hair, cover up a black eye and fix broken finger nails.

It's the bond between a woman and her stylist that inspired a new program coming to the state that trains people who work in salons to listen and offer help to clients who reveal they are in abusive relationships.

"My God, they'll tell their hairdressers things they don't tell anybody else," said Pat Adams, co-owner of Salon ABC in Columbia. "They feel like they're their friends, not just their clients, their friends. I know I can count on my clients, and my clients know they can count on me."

With 36,000 incident reports for criminal domestic violence in the state in 2002 and one of the highest rates of women killed by men in the nation, South Carolina is among 11 states in the "Cut it Out" program, funded by the National Cosmetology Association, Clairol and Southern Living.

"Hairdressers are in a position to learn of these types of assaults," said Attorney General Henry McMaster, who is having a news conference Wednesday on the program. "This is a great idea. I think it will have enormous, positive results in South Carolina."

Salons will place information on getting help in discreet places, including bathrooms.

"It gets information into the hands of the women who are being abused, so they can go get help," said Vicki Bourus, executive director of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. "When women read the signs of domestic violence, sometimes they go 'Hey, that's me!'"

The poster shows a crying women, with her eyes closed and mascara running down her face, with her hand over her mouth like she's just been hit. It tells women that there's no excuse for abuse and provides a telephone number to call the National Domestic Violence hot line.

That picture brings back memories for Adams, a stylish 52-year-old blonde with a French manicure and orange flip-flops who says she was in an abusive relationship decades ago.

"You have flashbacks. That's something you never get over," Adams said. "Have I healed? Yes, I've healed, but forget it? No, I'll never forget about it."

She left him, taking her dog and nothing else, after a fight where she finally fought back.

"He jerked me up out of the bed and started beating me," Adams said. "And something snapped in me. I ran back and hit him and busted his lip, and I thought, 'You're dead now.' I just knew I was dead. He started beating me more."

Adams said she has heard clients talk of abusive boyfriends and husbands for years. That's why all of her employees will be trained in the 2 1/2-hour sessions that will be offered around the state.

"From being abused myself, I know you're scared to tell anyone because you're embarrassed," she said. "A lot of times they don't know where to go ... I didn't know where to go."

The program teaches salon workers to listen and refer abused clients to professionals to get help, said Vilma Cobb, Adams' business partner and a program trainer.

"I'm not a counselor," Cobb said. "I could give the wrong advice and could get her killed."

Most women will leave abusive partners seven times before they leave for good, but she sees success stories every day, Cobb said.

Erica Benson, 36, a critical care nurse from Columbia happens to be one of them. A recent nursing school graduate and first-time homeowner, Benson pointed to her silver Volkswagen Beetle in the salon parking lot, while getting a cut and highlight from Cobb.

"You still have a hard time thinking you deserve something good," said Benson, who also was abused.

She broke down recalling her days of going to work with black eyes and trying to look ugly in the hopes he would leave her, of being denied more education and having no money to get her hair done.

"He still haunts her," Cobb said afterward. "We've had them where they just sit in our chair and cry. We had them where they just spill their guts out to us."

---

On the Net: http://www.cutitout.org/