Wednesday, January 03, 2007

A Hairy Situation

I want to tell you about my recent hair discovery but first I have to give you a bit of background information:
1) I have naturally curly hair. It’s not wavy and the curls aren’t “loose” – it’s really curly! Think Little Orphan Annie but not as curly as Lauren Hill in the “Killing Me Softly” video.
2) I keep my hair long to weigh the curls down and to attempt a “loose” curl look.
3) I hate to have my hair cut (or trimmed) because I’m so worried they will cut it too short and I will look like a personified poodle.

Ok, the story:
I’ve been going to the same hair person for awhile now. She’s been ok, mostly doing what I ask her to do (which is cut off as little as possible but still try to keep it healthy) and she’s usually pretty cool about it. Two times ago she told me my hair needed more “body” because the weight of its length is causing it to look flat. Then she told me we could achieve more body by “undercutting” my hair. I’m a pretty trusting person and even though I wasn’t entirely sure what the term “undercutting” meant I figured, “hey, this chick went to school & got a license and she’s been good with hair before so undercutting must be ok”. Well, I didn’t think whatever she did made too much of a difference and my hair was shorter than I wanted it but that happens a lot and I got over it (not without crying over it, though). Fast forward to late September or early October…I went to this person again for a trim and we disagreed about how much she should cut off my hair. She wanted to cut two inches and I wanted her to cut a half inch. We were actually so unhappy with one another that it turned into an argument and in the end she did what I wanted but was very obviously resentful.

Where am I going with this? Well, on New Year’s Eve I wanted to get my hair trimmed and possibly styled for the evening and I was still feeling pretty sour about my last experience with my hairdresser so decided to try someone new. I went to a completely different salon and braved a total stranger cutting my hair. I’m sitting in the chair and the stranger has a very puzzled look on her face which quickly changes to concern. Then she proceeds to ask me if I have problem growing my hair longer…I don’t so she shows me what happened to my hair when the previous lady decided to “undercut” it for more body. The other lady cut the underneath layer FIVE INCHES shorter than the outer layer! First, I shouldn’t have layers at all and second, FIVE INCHES! Now, it’s growing out and I look like I’m actually going bald because my hair is its normal thickness until the last 5 inches where it gets really thin because the underneath is so short! ACK! I am so mad at that previous lady! What was she thinking when she went so short underneath? If it hadn’t happened so long ago, I would go to her shop and kick her hair-cutting ass!

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