It’s not thaaat bad. I just really wish I had all of my hair back. I flop down in my stylist’s chair, and he asks, “So what are we doing today?” I show him a photo of Bridget Bardot, just like a good client should. He nods understandingly and I show him a length. I also attempt to describe the tone of the ombre hair I want which is relevant to the story to serve the purpose of showing you how much time was involved.
He starts chopping, we start talking.
We talk about boyfriends, stalking models, using hashtags on Instagram as search tools and how extremely unfortunate it is that manicures only last that long. Three hours go by, my hair is soaked and he’s STILL trimming. He says something about how adorable face-framing pieces would be. I nod. That’s where it went downhill…He looks at me like a six-year-old who just gave his mum another shitty doodle, or like how a puppy looks at you after chewing your shoe.
I pay, sheepishly smile and leave. This isn’t the worst thing to have happened to my hair. You see, when I was 13, I cut away what I thought were “weird baby hair” at the crown of my head and ended up with a bald spot, which grew back into a strange Alpaca-style thing. This is how I ended up with short bangs and helmet hair.
Fast forward to last week, when I sat in that damned chair again. I met another nice man who left me with five inches less hair than expected. Why does this always happen? I go for a trim and end up looking like Skrillex. There was a moment or several, actually — when I could have stopped it. All of my insecurities were tied up in a tiny bun and it felt like an ugly sweater I was doomed to wear for eternity.
“It grows,” I thought, reading the packages of texturising pastes, sea salt sprays and volumisers, I could do something that will make it tolerable, right? “Start growing,” I prayed to all the gods, and browsed through “short hair ideas” on Pinterest and watched videos of people braiding their short hair, which was still definitely longer than mine.
Here’s what I’ve learnt from half a lifetime of bad haircuts: go in with more than one photo. I’m convinced my debacle could’ve been prevented if I had shown him a photo of Keira Knightley’s wavy lob too. Don’t let bonding with your stylist come in the way of your end goal. Yes, it’s a three-hour gossip sesh but if you want a haircut that makes you look French: tell him! Trust your gut and experiment with with more typical bad-haircut hiding ideas (like top-knots and hats). Take your hair growth vitamins and stop caring so much. It’s just hair and it’ll grow back! Not like you got a bad tattoo, right?
