BELMONT, Mass. – Voters routinely ask about it on the campaign trail. Pundits chronicle the slightest changes in its presentation. There is a Facebook page devoted it – not to mention an entire blog. "Has it always been this good?" read a recent online entry.

The subject of the unusually intense political speculation and debate? Mitt Romney's hair.

By far his most distinctive physical feature, Romney's head of impeccably coiffed black hair has become something of a cosmetological Rorschach test on the campaign trail, with many seeing in his thick locks everything they love and loathe about the Republican candidate for the White House. (Commanding, reassuring, presidential, crow fans; too stiff, too slick, too perfect, complain critics.)

Romney's advisers have been known to fret about the shiny strands, and his rivals have sought to turn them against him. Asked by the late-night host Jimmy Fallon on Monday what word she associated with Romney, a businessman, Olympics executive and governor, Rep. Michele Bachmann replied, "Hair."

Nobody has a more complicated and intimate relationship with Romney's hair than the man who has styled it for more than two decades, a barrel-chested, bald Italian immigrant named Leon de Magistris.

For years, de Magistris said in an interview, he has tried to persuade Romney, 64, to loosen up his look by tousling his meticulous mane.

"I will tell him to mess it up a little bit," said de Magistris, 69. "I said to him, 'Let it be more natural.' "

The suggestion has not gone over well.

"He wants a look that is very controlled," de Magistris said. "He is a very controlled man. The hair goes with the man."

Romney's is a restrained, classic look: short at the neck, neat on the sides and swept back off the forehead.

"It is not something stylish," de Magistris noted. "It is clean and conservative."

The cut is so recognizable that men in this suburb of Boston ask for it by name.

"The Mitt," they whisper to de Magistris from the red vinyl chairs in his upscale salon, Leon & Co., a few blocks from the sprawling home where Romney raised his family.

De Magistris, who gave Romney a $70 trim three weeks ago, agreed to share some of the secrets behind his famous client's coiffure in between haircuts the other day.

No, he said, Romney does not color his hair. Any such artificial enhancement, de Magistris said, "is not – what do you call it? – in his DNA." Despite holding its shape under all but the most extreme conditions, it is gel and mousse-free. "I don't put any product in there," he avowed.

And there is this: Sometimes, during long spells on the campaign trail, Romney trims his own hair, much to the dismay of his stylist.

"It doesn't make me happy," de Magistris said, "but what can I do?"

Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, declined to comment on the candidate's hairstyle, or to make Romney available to discuss it.

Advisers describe Romney, whose hectic schedule has landed him in barbershops from Atlanta to New York City (where his cut costs $25), as uninterested in the finer points of his appearance. The same cannot be said of his advisers. In 2007, the last time Romney ran for president, they drafted a 77-page PowerPoint presentation on his strengths and weaknesses, which later fell into the hands of a reporter.

His hair was listed as a potential turnoff.

Interviews with voters on the campaign trail suggest that, if anything, Romney's age-defying hair is an asset, especially with women.

As Romney took the microphone at a campaign stop in Nashua, N.H., a few days ago, Caroline Cagan acknowledged a weakness for his lush locks.

"A lot of people would pay a lot of money to have hair like that," said Cagan, a local Chamber of Commerce member. "It projects youth. And, honestly, you can't help but think that people with good hair are in good health."

Diane Godbout, a retiree who attended the same event, put it in simpler terms: "It's very presidential."

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