Why even go to a salon?

I thought about this one recent afternoon while I sat waiting for my turn to get my hair blown out in a crowded uptown salon. I thought of the 1939 film “The Women,” with its famous scene in a beauty salon that serves as a hub of gossip and self-care. I was living the modern version of that but couldn’t wait to get out.

For about $25 more I could have used Glamsquad or another app to summon someone to my apartment to style my hair while I listened to podcasts or pretended to work.

I was ready to consider whether I could wean myself off salons entirely, if I could pull off trimming and coloring my own hair, when I heard about a new one that intrigued me. It’s called Starring by Ted Gibson, and it’s in Los Angeles (home, I recalled, to “Shampoo,” one of the other great salon movies).

In late 2016, the stylist Ted Gibson and his husband and business partner, the colorist Jason Backe, closed their 13-year-old salon in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan. A few months later, they left New York to try out life on the West Coast.