There's no joy in Mulletville.

The "chicks at TotalBeauty.com" have ranked Pittsburgh third among its 13 Worst-Hair Cities, behind No. 1 Corpus Christi, Texas, and No. 2 Olympia, Wash.

Pittsburghers are rushing to defend -- or join the attack on ­-- the city's state of hair styling.

The truth is, the chicks aren't talking about bad hairstyles so much as bad environmental conditions for hair. Their assessment:

"It's not called the 'Pitts' for nothin'. As the most polluted city in America, your hair will be calling Greenpeace on a daily basis. Pollution has been known to cause premature baldness, graying and dullness."

Sheer lunacy, said many stylists. They reject the assertions about pollution and the idea that there's bad hair afoot in the 'Burgh.

In her response, Sybil Schafer, owner of Sybil Salon and Spa in Shadyside, brandished her sharpest words.

"These girls don't know what they're talking about. What decade are you 'chicks' living in? Pittsburgh hasn't been the most polluted city since the '60s. We have cleaned up our act, including our hair," said Ms. Schafer, a color expert who worked in Beverly Hills before opening her business.

Beth Mayall-Traglia, editor in chief of TotalBeauty.com, said yesterday that the staff evaluated cities on these criteria: humidity levels; wind, rain and sun; pollution levels; the number of beauty salons; water hardness; and demographics.

Some of these cities had high rankings in certain areas but not in others, Ms. Mayall-Traglia said, adding that Pittsburgh made the list because the American Lung Association has ranked it as one of the most polluted cities in the United States. Pittsburgh's high concentration of elderly residents landed it on the list, too.

Nevertheless, Ms. Schafer is correct that Pittsburgh has cleaned up its air. A January report in the New England Journal of Medicine said 10 months were added to the life expectancy of Allegheny County residents due to reductions of fine particle soot emissions made over the past two decades.

Dennis Emery, a hair stylist for 27 years and manager of Ecotage Salon & Spa at Macy's Downtown, also begs to differ with the TotalBeauty chicks, for a different reason.

"I don't think that list is probably all that accurate. Many cities in Florida have higher humidity levels than Pittsburgh," he said, citing Miami and West Palm Beach as examples.

"Humidity just destroys a hair style. The hair will go limp. If it's curly, hair will get frizzy," Mr. Emery said.

Nicholas Zentec, a Shadyside hair stylist, agrees Pittsburgh is a challenging city in which to do hair, adding that he jokes with customers that they get about one good month every year of perfect hair days -- sunny, low humidity and 70 degrees.

But others said the environment is beside the point. It's the Farrah hair that's the problem.

"All of Pennsylvania has every form of mullet known to both man AND woman," reads a post from Angela on the TotalBeauty.com Web site. "Women here STILL feather their hair. Women here STILL wear Farrah hair. Bald men in their 60s with no hair on top of their heads wear pony tails all the way down their backs. Sixty-year-old women haven't cut their hair since they were 12 and it hangs down to their ankles. People here are still wearing hair styles from the early seasons of the FIRST 90210. No amount of 'product' is going to fix any of this."

The only thing that will help, Angela added, "is a wake-up call. It's 2009. Get over the past and get a decent hair cut. NO ONE looks good with 'their ears cut out,' and the 'party in the back' ended over 20 years ago."

Ms. Shafer of Sybil Salon said regardless of some bad air or bad hair, Pittsburgh is not a hair wasteland. "There might be some not-so-happy heads walking around, but we have sophisticated hair dressers with sophisticated clients walking the streets of Pittsburgh."