the hair journey
2 Aug 2021 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneI've been cutting my own hair since I was 20, so that's 18 years now.
My hair is very wavy but not [except when I was about 16-20 for some reason] curly, and quite thick and... stubborn? The wave won't dry facing the other way if you brush it in place and curl it under when wet, or blowdry it with a brush, for example. (Also it takes at least 3x as long as the instructions say for peroxide or dye to have their effect on it.)
Background reason for this is this: a lifetime of bad professional haircuts that cost money and NO good professional haircuts in my entire life. See, as a preteen I had my hair cut repeatedly into a bob that was layered at the back at those cheap haircut places in the mall. Every single time they cut my hair wet and every single time it dried EXTREMELY wrong: the sides were always different lengths, it was frequently shorter than desired, basically it just looked stupid most of the time after being cut. I'm not going to blame ALL of this on my hair's wave - although I've since learned that curly hair, which includes wavy hair, it is generally thought should be cut dry - because I'm sure some of the time they legit cut it longer on one side. Those quick mall haircut places were so cheap that, honestly, it's still not really overpaying for the labor involved.
When I was at college and my hair was in long ringlets halfway down my back, I decided sort of on a whim to dye it fire-engine red: first experience with peroxide! But after six months of frustratedly re-dyeing and having it wash out sooner and sooner each time, when my dad had his car accident and became quadriplegic and my mom and baby sister went to stay at the hospital with him three hours' drive away and I was house- and pet-sitting alone, with my psychiatric medications not working and already on a leave of absence from college because of depression and anxiety... I reached peak No Fucks to Give. Time had lost all meaning; I barely had a body; my hair no longer held dye or its formerly beautiful ringlets, so what was in my hair for me? I just stood in front of the mirror and started hacking at random. I wasn't going to leave the house anyway, so it didn't matter what it looked like! And if I didn't like it, I reasoned, I could always go shorter. (When you get to sort of a centimeter or so all around, it isn't difficult - you just cut the same distance from the skin everywhere.)
But it came out fine! And I just kept doing it. Cutting dry and dirty let me obey the wave's whims and I was always willing to cut more off if I made a mistake - I wore it in a fuzzy pixie-buzz a few times. At least if I made it look bad I wouldn't have paid for it to look bad. Most of the time I was either cutting it off in a straight bob, or a simple pixie, and those were easy. I have attempted quite a few times over the years to cut my own layers into the back as well, with much less success - never quite right really, but generally ending up looking okay enough. And I always had 'if it's too bad I'll just cut more off' in reserve, after all!
I've lived in Finland 17 years now without ever having my hair cut professionally here.
However, in the last couple of years I've really wanted a more layered style and so I've started thinking maybe I should just pay someone to do it. I don't actually know how to do them, after all (I know in theory, but I don't know how to control the scissors in my hands based on looking in two mirrors at the back of my head; I don't have that level of coordination).
I'm absurdly anxious about actually going into a salon after so long though, so I think I won't go today after all (I was sort of thinking yesterday). Perhaps I will wait until a day Wax has off when I can persuade her to come out with me (and like, wait outside the salon obviosuly, because pandemic).
eta the collage of pictures of my pixie cuts and bobs 2009-2014 (made when trying to decide if I wanted to grow my hair into a bob or cut it into a pixie again), plus (right) the last time I had colored hair (2011) plus three hairs from 2016-17 (I have taken very few selfies since then, but I haven't done anything other than those with my hair since).
My hair is very wavy but not [except when I was about 16-20 for some reason] curly, and quite thick and... stubborn? The wave won't dry facing the other way if you brush it in place and curl it under when wet, or blowdry it with a brush, for example. (Also it takes at least 3x as long as the instructions say for peroxide or dye to have their effect on it.)
Background reason for this is this: a lifetime of bad professional haircuts that cost money and NO good professional haircuts in my entire life. See, as a preteen I had my hair cut repeatedly into a bob that was layered at the back at those cheap haircut places in the mall. Every single time they cut my hair wet and every single time it dried EXTREMELY wrong: the sides were always different lengths, it was frequently shorter than desired, basically it just looked stupid most of the time after being cut. I'm not going to blame ALL of this on my hair's wave - although I've since learned that curly hair, which includes wavy hair, it is generally thought should be cut dry - because I'm sure some of the time they legit cut it longer on one side. Those quick mall haircut places were so cheap that, honestly, it's still not really overpaying for the labor involved.
When I was at college and my hair was in long ringlets halfway down my back, I decided sort of on a whim to dye it fire-engine red: first experience with peroxide! But after six months of frustratedly re-dyeing and having it wash out sooner and sooner each time, when my dad had his car accident and became quadriplegic and my mom and baby sister went to stay at the hospital with him three hours' drive away and I was house- and pet-sitting alone, with my psychiatric medications not working and already on a leave of absence from college because of depression and anxiety... I reached peak No Fucks to Give. Time had lost all meaning; I barely had a body; my hair no longer held dye or its formerly beautiful ringlets, so what was in my hair for me? I just stood in front of the mirror and started hacking at random. I wasn't going to leave the house anyway, so it didn't matter what it looked like! And if I didn't like it, I reasoned, I could always go shorter. (When you get to sort of a centimeter or so all around, it isn't difficult - you just cut the same distance from the skin everywhere.)
But it came out fine! And I just kept doing it. Cutting dry and dirty let me obey the wave's whims and I was always willing to cut more off if I made a mistake - I wore it in a fuzzy pixie-buzz a few times. At least if I made it look bad I wouldn't have paid for it to look bad. Most of the time I was either cutting it off in a straight bob, or a simple pixie, and those were easy. I have attempted quite a few times over the years to cut my own layers into the back as well, with much less success - never quite right really, but generally ending up looking okay enough. And I always had 'if it's too bad I'll just cut more off' in reserve, after all!
I've lived in Finland 17 years now without ever having my hair cut professionally here.
However, in the last couple of years I've really wanted a more layered style and so I've started thinking maybe I should just pay someone to do it. I don't actually know how to do them, after all (I know in theory, but I don't know how to control the scissors in my hands based on looking in two mirrors at the back of my head; I don't have that level of coordination).
I'm absurdly anxious about actually going into a salon after so long though, so I think I won't go today after all (I was sort of thinking yesterday). Perhaps I will wait until a day Wax has off when I can persuade her to come out with me (and like, wait outside the salon obviosuly, because pandemic).
eta the collage of pictures of my pixie cuts and bobs 2009-2014 (made when trying to decide if I wanted to grow my hair into a bob or cut it into a pixie again), plus (right) the last time I had colored hair (2011) plus three hairs from 2016-17 (I have taken very few selfies since then, but I haven't done anything other than those with my hair since).
(no subject)
Date: 2 Aug 2021 10:15 am (UTC)Anyway good luck, I ttly understand the anxiety, and I send good vibes <333
(no subject)
Date: 2 Aug 2021 08:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3 Aug 2021 03:03 am (UTC)Tiktok keeps insisting that everyone with wavy hair actually has curly hair that they are washing wrong lol.
I started cutting my own hair when Ioved onto the farm too, much less skilfully than you, literally just cutting off the bit of the ponytail that annoys me. Achieves my desire of “shorter hair that dries faster”. I’m juuuust about at the stage of hacking it all off and buying a couple of wigs for anytime I want nice hair.
(no subject)
Date: 3 Aug 2021 08:34 am (UTC)I find that I get too cold behind the ears in winter with a really short pixie cut like the periwinkle one, so my current goal is more like the lower left in the second collage. Or actually Ben Whishaw's hair in Skyfall, but I know mine isn't truly fluffy enough to achieve that most days and the result is more like that^.
(no subject)
Date: 3 Aug 2021 08:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3 Aug 2021 08:44 am (UTC)I think there are actresses who do the wig thing in Hollywood. I have played with the idea before, but I realized there aren't any occasions in my life when I actually want nice hair and I totally COULD just buzz it all off with a hair trimmer and be fine if not for my head getting cold.