You know that knot you get in the pit of your stomach when something is really bad? That's what I had this morning as I stood in the bathroom in front of the mirror, flat iron in hand as I began straightening out various sections of my hair. I suspected that when I was finished I wouldn't like what I was going to see.
I was right.
I've been growing my hair out for roughly two years. I didn't get it cut (or colored) the entire time I was pregnant with Paige and it got long enough during that time that I thought "what the heck" and continued letting it grow even after she was here - although I immediately went back to my coloring and styling ways. Anyway, it had been a while since I had long hair and I thought it might be fun. What it really was, was a pain the butt. I have entirely TOO MUCH hair to ever wear it long. Granted, it looked pretty when I bothered to do it, hanging like a dark glass waterfall over my shoulders and down my back. But more often than not, I tossed it into a ponytail because getting it to look that way took an hour at a minimum. Just getting it dry enough to flat iron took 45 minutes. Yes, I really do have hair that thick.
So, last weekend I had a hair appointment to touch up my roots and get a cut and I decided it was time to say goodbye to my long locks and hello to something much easier to manage. I pored over the hair magazine that I keep for such occasions and selected three styles, all very similar and all on girls with a face shape similar to mine. I showed these to my stylist Saturday before we got started and explained what I was looking for.
She dove in, working on my color and highlights first and then back to the chair for the cut. Most of the time I didn't pay attention to what she was doing. I sat quietly reading some trashy magazine while she snipped away. Then she started in with the blow drying using...not a flat brush, but a round brush and I started to get a little concerned. I couldn't imagine styling the cut I had asked for with a round brush, but I'm not the expert so what did I know?
When she was done I looked at it and tried to hide my cringe. The top was MUCH longer than I had asked for or anticipated and she had managed to flip the back out in a poorly done mimic of the old "Rachel" hairstyle. I grabbed a mirror and looked at the back...asked her if she thought perhaps I should have another layer in there. She argued with me, was afraid I wouldn't like it. I was annoyed.
I'm the person that had a white pixie haircut in my mid-20s which was later accidentally turned into a shade of purple. If I can handle that, I could certainly handle her cutting in another layer - of course, she didn't know that. But also, I was starting to have that gnawing feeling that I had just been given a bad haircut...and once I've been burned by a stylist, they are history. Why would I ask them to fix the cut? After all, they are the one that missed it up to begin with. At any rate, I have been going to this girl for the past year or so and she's always done a good job. Granted, she really didn't have to do more than trip and shape since I was growing my hair out.
So, I left and bitched instead to Todd about how I was thinking about taking a pair of scissors to it myself to make it look more like what I was asking for to begin with. Once I had calmed down, though, I decided to give it a few days and see if the style grew on me.
Sunday, we hosted a Super Bowl party at our house. I didn't wash my hair since it had just been colored the day before. Instead I tried to work with the styling it had been given. I wasn't thrilled with the results, it was a little too helmet-y for me but I went with it since I was too busy to really spend much time on it.
Yesterday, I washed it but then threw it in a ponytail because I wasn't quite ready to face facts yet. Which brings me back to this morning. As I straightened it out one section at a time, the horror grew. I essentially have bi-level hair - not a mullet, but if you look at the back there is one long section that is just straight and all one length, then roughly three inches above that starts a heavily layered section...and it almost looks like the work of a three year old. You know what I'm talking about. We've all seen the kids that took the scissors and started hacking at their bangs. The end results are gappy, uneven, and always bring to mind a staircase because you can see defined ridges. THAT is what the back of my hair looks like. In one one two hour period, my stylist managed to take two years worth of patiently grown locks and turn them into a nightmare.
This isn't the first time I've ever had a bad haircut...but generally I can work with them. Style them in such a way that I can hide the damage that has been done until it is long enough to do something else with it. Not so, this time. I'm going to have to get another cut - no, I won't be going back to my girl...ever - so I'm going to have to go back to my old standbye place in Lewisville. We'll see what they can do to salvage it. I suspect it is possibly going to end up pretty short.
Updates to come, I'm sure. Oh, and wish me luck.
