By Gina Daugherty / The Cincinnati Enquirer

Michelle Orstad and Emily Kreyling. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

Emily Kreyling and Michelle Orstad are so blond that if their hair was any blonder, it would be clear.

They're blond-bombshell blond. They couldn't blend into a crowd if they tried. Even their personalities are blond - both effervescent and spontaneous, they're the kind of girls who would touch your arm at a party and compliment you on your chandelier earrings.

Kreyling and Orstad are beauticians at Phyllis at the Madison, a full-service salon on Madison Road in Hyde Park. And it's a good thing they work there, because they're addicted to blond.

"In high school I worked for no other reason than to support my hair habit," says Kreyling, who devoutly colors her roots every three weeks. "I had my first Sun-In and bleach experience when I was 12. Over half of my life I've had a color that is not my natural hair color."

Ditto for Orstad, who even when she was a waitress made getting her hair colored a top priority.

Every three weeks, both women undergo bleaching to strip their hair of any natural color. Then comes their favorite part: the blond. They taunt each other over who will have their blond done first. Krey- ling just got back from vacation, so Orstad is winning this week.

Up until a year ago when she started working at Phyllis at the Madison, Orstad suffered at the hands of her colorist's bleach.

"My stylist would tell me to take an antihistamine. It was ridiculous the pain I would go through," she says. "The bleach would have to be so strong to pull the color out that I would sit there for 45 minutes to an hour with a long comb and I would be picking at my head, poking it, because the bleach would burn and itch so bad. I would dread it every three weeks. I'd love it after, but it was pain."

Fortunately, Orstad doesn't have to withstand scalp-burning bleach anymore. "I loooove the bleach here," she coos.

Phyllis Rinaldi, owner of Phyllis at the Madison, says once a woman goes blond, she never goes back.

"They're blond for life," she says. "They are blond in their mind. It's like their personality changes. It's a feeling. The blonder you go, the better you feel."

Orstad and Kreyling admit they feel they get more attention as blondes. They get more double-takes. Men are more apt to the hold the door open for them. And they say women see them as more approachable with short blond hair, as opposed to long blond, which can be intimidating.

Kreyling was brunette for a stint just before beauty school. But not by choice, of course. She "fried" her hair and wasn't able to bleach it. She hated her brown tresses.

"I didn't feel pretty," she says. "No one thought I was pretty as a brunette, not even my mother, and she always thinks I'm pretty. I like the bombshell blond. This color is Marilyn, more Jane Mansfield. This is trashy, Hollywood-starlet blond. It's not even remotely natural. There is no adult on this planet who has hair this color naturally. No one past age five has this color naturally."

For Orstad, her hair color captures her personality. She says it's an outgoing, fun and stunning color.

The two are so blond, you could shave their heads and they'd still come across as blue-eyed, fair complexioned blondes.

It's more than their hair color. Blond is their personality.

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Email gdaugherty@enquirer.com