Haircuts, and the hating thereof

[in_parentheses]

Hairstyle is the one part of being an adult I haven't managed to figure out (career), fake convincingly (investment), or sidestep (car ownership). Some days my hair looks great, most days it looks unnoticeably okay, and plenty of days it looks stupid. There is no rhyme or reason to any of this, as far as I can tell

Comments

[ruthling]

I have never noticed your hair looking stupid. Maybe I'm just not attuned to hair styles. I have tried a lot of looks so far in my adult life but I have rarely found that aha moment with a stylist. The best I've found is someone who will listen to me and not try to talk me out of getting it cut short. You might want to try a fairly high-end salon once, just to have someone who will talk to you about options and explain various upkeep regimes (e.g., little to none). There are also places you can look at a whole bunch of hairstyles and see if there are some that appeal to you.

other than that I have no idea.

[in_parentheses]

Heh. The high-end salon attempt was today, and is what prompted all this. They don't understand no upkeep any more than cheap places do (less, perhaps).

The last time I tried a high-end place was in college, and I came out looking like Jennifer Aniston. Who is more or less who I look like today. Perhaps The Jennifer is what my hair does when it's looking "done"? Could be worse, I guess. But still.

[yagagriswold]

Huh. I'd sort of catgorized you as one of those people who just has naturally pretty hair and doesn't have to fuck with it to look good.

As for my stylist, I currently go to Salon Cu, which is in the building where I live. They reliably cut it short enough, but don't make me look like Frankenstein, which are the chief things I look for in the person who cuts my hair. They're also inexpensive and nice.

I have a moderately successful, short, list of instructions I give to new stylists: use a #2 clipper on the sides and back, blend it forward so I have a little more length in front. No sideburns. And then there's a lot of "Shorter here, please," while they're cutting. Either they get it or I switch to someone who does.

[in_parentheses]

Hell yes! I am all about the bright red mohawk!

Yeah, the highlights were supposed to be the dramatic change. And they are dramatic! (At least in comparison to how I look usually; they're pretty subtle, I guess, for highlights.) They're really yellow, though. I have douche stripes. I tried to steer him to red, but he insisted this would be better. He was wrong. Never, ever again.

[janet_carter]

My hair is enough thicker and wavier than it looks that I never know what it's going to look like with a new style, and hairdressers are even more surprised than I am. But I usually like it. So my instructions are either "same cut, trimmed very short", "same cut except for different here", or "do something approximately length x, and we'll see how it goes." I don't want a hairstylist who gets judgy about how I don't blowdry or flatiron, but otherwise I seem to do okay with whoever.

I cut my own hair for years, until it got short enough that that was an especially bad idea. Now it's 2 or 3 times a year, $35-40+tip (which isn't often enough for my length of hair, but calling up to make an appointment stresses me out, and so does spending the money.)

[halo]

It's honestly never occurred to me that there is a hair lingo. I just give totally blunt, straightforward directions to stylists (this is what I want. this is what I do not want. this is the time I plan to spend styling my hair, etc.). If you don't plan on blowdrying, say so. I used to have a stylist who adjusted the cuts she gave me based on my (former) unwillingness to buy a hair dryer. It sounds like you just have to find a stylist with whom you communicate well.

I will say, if you are willing to blow dry and do some basic styling, you will have a lot more control over good vs. bad hair days. I was very resistant to it myself, but I came around.

I do believe that hair cuts are, to a point, a get what you pay for scenario. I pay around $50 for cuts, plus whatever color I get done. How often really depends on what color phase I'm going through.

[in_parentheses]

But how did you figure out what you want and don't want? How did you learn what those straightforward directions *are*? That's the lingo.

And yeah, I know you're right about the blow drying. But that would seriously require that I get up before 5 a.m., and even I have limits. Alas. (Besides, anything nice about it would be ruined as soon as I step outside in the winter anyway, but that's another issue.)

[halo]

You obviously already have a pretty good idea of what you don't want. It sounds to me like it's not so much that you don't know the lingo, as you're not really sure what you want done with your hair. Why not look at the style books that most salons have? That'd be a good starting place for figuring out what you do and don't like stylewise, and would be really good for literally showing a stylist what you want. Or look online, and print out pictures to bring with you

[halo]

also, go talk to my old stylist in Boston. She's awesome. And she was the one who adjusted cuts for me, based on whether or not I was willing to dry my hair. Most of all she is a genius at color, and will never give you douchey anything.

http://www.wendyrapoza.com/

[hilariarex]

oh, I so understand what you mean. I feel I need to have professional looking hair to be taken seriously as a lawyer and yet I do not want to put up with any crap for my hair, so as a result I have done nothing with my hair forever except put it up in a twist.

My favorite stylist ever is Quiana Johnson: http://www.aspatoremember.com/hair.htm

because she actually listens to me when I talk and then attempts to achieve what I just said, instead of doing totally random crap.

I haven't been back to see her in a long time because she works in freaking Chelmsford, but she is really awesome and I totally intend to go there when I have the money to spend combined with the time to drive up there.

[in_parentheses]

Yeah, I wish my hair looked nice as long as yours does, but of course you're probably annoyed with it. Because everyone likes everyone else's hair better than their own. :)

I'm so glad you found a stylist you like! It gives me hope that they exist.

[hilariarex]

yeah, it's frustrating when you go to a salon and are like, "I don't own a blow dryer and I don't want to, and I'm not going to use one ever, and I'm not going to buy a fancy comb for tucking my ends under, and if it takes more than 10 minutes then I don't want to do it, and if you make me look like I'm someone else then I'll feel like I just look like I'm trying to be someone I'm not, and then I will like my hair for the 2 hours after I leave the salon and then hate it. Please just trim the split ends off and leave it the fuck alone."

And they sort of go, uh-huh, but what about... are you sure... I could just... And then they just proceed to do whatever they want, which in most people's cases is to go omg! a person with really long hair! I bet that after spending the past 5 years growing that out they really want to cut off 8 inches and then put weird layers in it that have to be blowdried to look right!

Or in one case, a guy actually said, "oh, honey, we're going to cut off that shit and give you a style. Which did look awesome.

[in_parentheses]

OMG exactly!

Fortunately, now that I'm doing my hair myself, it looks less Gossip Girl and more like shaggy me-hair. It does not look like $113 and 3 hours of my life, but whatevs.