I hate getting haircuts
My mom was a hairdresser in Europe and cut my hair until she got tired of my teenage complaints that it wasn't cool enough. Friends was the hottest show on TV in the seventh grade, and my first-ever stranger stylist decided that what my long brown hair needed was The Rachel. On Jennifer Aniston, it looked glamorous and rock star-shaggy. On my awkward frame draped in oversized tees and round face, it looked at best out of place, at worst like I'd been attacked by a weedwhacker. This was my first brush with truly awful hair - I walked around with as much of it pulled back in a ponytail as possible and was never so thankful that my hair grows super fast in my life.
The minimum skill level to pull off this style is fairly high. Although the stylist who gave her this cut just TODAY admitted he was high when he did it! She reportedly hated it, too.
After that trauma, between my family's meager budget (resulting in a lot of not-so-Supercuts) and my lack of self-confidence that anything I do with my hair could look good, my school years were an embarrassing collection of badly cut, or badly in need of cutting, class photos. It didn't help that I'm terrible at making small talk and don't much care for the experience of a total stranger leaning into my personal space, so haircuts are basically one long exercise in not bursting into tears punctuated by awkward pauses. I also used that time to remember where the nearest Claire's was for the inevitable following three weeks when I would wear a new headband or clips to make it seem less like I'd cut my own hair like a first grader.
Then came college. Gainesville is a much hipper place than my tiny Podunk, Florida town, so when it came time for my first collegiate haircut I gave the usual spiel - "just do whatever you think would look good on me" - and the stylist went nuts. It has since been confirmed by lesbian friends that when a stylist assumes you're gay, they cut your hair much shorter and more edgy than they otherwise would a straight woman's hair. My hair was above my chin for the first time in my life, but more than that, the entire back was an inch long, intended to be spiked out with gel. Oh, and it included a streaky red dye job. It did nothing to attract women, but it was totally effective as a guy repellent. So much for hoping that a change in zip codes would solve my problem.
My only record of that haircut is this shot with Steve Raimi at Dragon*Con. At least he hadn't been put off. Also, I'm wearing a Television Without Pity Smallville shirt!
I have gotten the odd good haircut, but those stylists never seemed to stay at their salons very long. It happened once in Lakeland, and once in Gainesville, and each time they disappeared under circumstances that the salon owners refused to discuss. But those few experiences and discovering that I look great with fringe despite what every stylist said for 15 years gave me hope that it was possible. I started clipping magazine photos and learning how certain techniques change my hair's shape and style. There were are still some issues that will haunt me forever, like the fact that no amount of blowdrying on my part will make the right side of my hair curl inward. This is usually where stylists start talking about curling and flat irons, rollers and specialized brushes that exist in the realm of women who wake up more than half an hour before they're supposed to be out the door. I make it a point to tell them that the most technique they can expect out of me is some light blowdrying, a round brush and a bit of product.
Anyway! Hair is hard. And though I've gotten haircuts that I've desperately wanted to fix, there was usually nobody guaranteed to be able to do better. But this week, I got not only possibly the second worst haircut ever, but one that I had a man to fix.
Part of my phobia with haircuts is that I tend to wait waaaaay past the recommended six weeks between them. Try six months. I just - I can't, OK? The soul can only handle the rollercoaster ride of getting my hopes up and then utterly dashed so often. So by the time I work myself up to one, there's a lot of frustration built up from loathing my hair every morning, which usually results in me walking into whatever salon is nearby and demanding that someone, anyone, do something with it. This method is, I recognize, highly unlikely to result in success, feeding a vicious cycle of mental anguish and embarrassment. So when it came time for my first New York haircut, I did the 21st century thing: ask Yelp. Shockingly, the glitzy, painfully modern salon around the corner from me had middling to poor reviews; but the hole-in-the-wall that looked like it was decorated in the best of '70s shabby chic had some glowing recommendations.
I went prepared with a photo from a magazine modeling shoot and precise ideas about how not to achieve it. Giovanni did not disappoint.
Look at all that fun and fancy-free-ness that a good haircut inspires!
For the first time in my life, everything about my hair was perfect. I had full fringe, instead of the sideswept stuff, and it looked great! My hair had structure and movement without the jagged mess that straight razors tend to create! Even the flippy right side could be coerced into submission with the barest effort. Too bad we didn't take more photos from Christmas vacation in Florida, because between that and a bit of New York shopping I looked fucking fabulous.
But at the next appointment, I felt more adventurous and returned my boilerplate "what you think would look good" - and Giovanni fell into the trap that several other stylists have done before: the 1920s cheekbone-length flapper bob. I know why they do it: accentuating my cheekbones takes the roundness out of my face, and there's enough Eastern European in my features that they think it can pull off an otherwise exotic haircut. But there's a minimum length for my hair to respond to blowdrying, and my fringe cannot be above my eyebrows (I bore a striking resemblance to Liz Lemon during her brief Dealbreaker! talk show days.)
Ouch.
Assuaging my heartbreak with a new hat (thanks, winter!) I consoled myself that in three months my hair could be back to its former glory.
But then the Star Trek Into Darkness publicity tour veered into New York.
Suddenly, I was going to be meeting a lot of new people, and on a ridiculously hopeful note, wanted to look good if I had the chance to ask Benedict for a photo. So the day before the New York red carpet, I rushed into the salon after work and asked if Giovanni could see me that night. He could not - but another man who worked there could. Fine: I still had the magazine clipping as well as a photo of me with the haircut. Surely this man, a trusted associate of Giovanni, could replicate it.
He most assuredly could not. I did not discover this until the next morning because blowdrying at a salon is expensive, but my fringe was too short and obviously uneven; the sides had not been layered at all and were cut to slant forward, which I expressly told him not to do because the right side would become unmanageable; the whole thing was too long and hung limply. After a bit of crying in the shower, I parted my fringe to the side and pulled the rest of it back, determined to get it fixed - which couldn't happen until three days later, but thankfully the closest I got to Cumberwaffles was a seven person-deep red carpet, and the standby line for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tickets was cut off right in front of me, so at least there would thankfully be no record of it.
Someone in the crowd of us yelled, "Hey, Bendy!" I nearly dropped dead of embarrassment, but he heard it and turned to us with a surprised smirk. The man's good sportsmanship is boundless.
The thing about getting a haircut fixed though, to use a restaurant metaphor, is that it's more like sending back a dish than an improperly cooked steak.
The standards for doneness in a steak are fairly universal - if I asked for medium well and its still bloody inside, that's an obvious do-over. But a dish that has been served for a long time to many other people who enjoyed it, otherwise it presumably would've been taken off the menu, is different. At the same time, there's no other business I can think of that's quite so dependent on the customer's opinion. Our palates are all a bit different, and at the end of the day the restaurant's job is to serve me food that I am willing to eat. Even if the waiter asks why we'd like a dish sent back (for the record, I've done this maybe three times in my three decades) there's no pressure to be food critic-specific because the reason is, unless the ingredients were spoiled or wrong, entirely subjective. It might be fine for everyone else, but it wasn't for me, and that's all there is to it.
But a haircut is different. I can be utterly distressed at the state of it, but to the stylist's eye, it meets all of my criteria. And maybe it does - I don't have the long-distance vision, the expertise or, frankly, the bravery to watch my hair being cut. Sitting in the chair means deep breaths and fighting the flight instinct of so many years' PTSD. I was afraid of looking stupid, incompetent and whiny by calling what might be a perfectly good haircut awful.
But I swallowed down all of that anxiety with a cup of Early Grey and went in for my appointment this afternoon. The man who'd cut my hair on Wednesday evening was mercifully not at the salon, sparing us both the awkwardness of the situation (and possibly public displays of teary anger). Giovanni listened to my concerns, looked at the pictures, ruffled through my hair and apologized three times, assuring me that he'd get an "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt and take a photo standing next to the guy.
My new haircut is still drying, but all signs point to it being just as great as the first one. Everything is OK - for another six weeks.
The minimum skill level to pull off this style is fairly high. Although the stylist who gave her this cut just TODAY admitted he was high when he did it! She reportedly hated it, too.
After that trauma, between my family's meager budget (resulting in a lot of not-so-Supercuts) and my lack of self-confidence that anything I do with my hair could look good, my school years were an embarrassing collection of badly cut, or badly in need of cutting, class photos. It didn't help that I'm terrible at making small talk and don't much care for the experience of a total stranger leaning into my personal space, so haircuts are basically one long exercise in not bursting into tears punctuated by awkward pauses. I also used that time to remember where the nearest Claire's was for the inevitable following three weeks when I would wear a new headband or clips to make it seem less like I'd cut my own hair like a first grader.
Then came college. Gainesville is a much hipper place than my tiny Podunk, Florida town, so when it came time for my first collegiate haircut I gave the usual spiel - "just do whatever you think would look good on me" - and the stylist went nuts. It has since been confirmed by lesbian friends that when a stylist assumes you're gay, they cut your hair much shorter and more edgy than they otherwise would a straight woman's hair. My hair was above my chin for the first time in my life, but more than that, the entire back was an inch long, intended to be spiked out with gel. Oh, and it included a streaky red dye job. It did nothing to attract women, but it was totally effective as a guy repellent. So much for hoping that a change in zip codes would solve my problem.
My only record of that haircut is this shot with Steve Raimi at Dragon*Con. At least he hadn't been put off. Also, I'm wearing a Television Without Pity Smallville shirt!
I have gotten the odd good haircut, but those stylists never seemed to stay at their salons very long. It happened once in Lakeland, and once in Gainesville, and each time they disappeared under circumstances that the salon owners refused to discuss. But those few experiences and discovering that I look great with fringe despite what every stylist said for 15 years gave me hope that it was possible. I started clipping magazine photos and learning how certain techniques change my hair's shape and style. There were are still some issues that will haunt me forever, like the fact that no amount of blowdrying on my part will make the right side of my hair curl inward. This is usually where stylists start talking about curling and flat irons, rollers and specialized brushes that exist in the realm of women who wake up more than half an hour before they're supposed to be out the door. I make it a point to tell them that the most technique they can expect out of me is some light blowdrying, a round brush and a bit of product.
Anyway! Hair is hard. And though I've gotten haircuts that I've desperately wanted to fix, there was usually nobody guaranteed to be able to do better. But this week, I got not only possibly the second worst haircut ever, but one that I had a man to fix.
Part of my phobia with haircuts is that I tend to wait waaaaay past the recommended six weeks between them. Try six months. I just - I can't, OK? The soul can only handle the rollercoaster ride of getting my hopes up and then utterly dashed so often. So by the time I work myself up to one, there's a lot of frustration built up from loathing my hair every morning, which usually results in me walking into whatever salon is nearby and demanding that someone, anyone, do something with it. This method is, I recognize, highly unlikely to result in success, feeding a vicious cycle of mental anguish and embarrassment. So when it came time for my first New York haircut, I did the 21st century thing: ask Yelp. Shockingly, the glitzy, painfully modern salon around the corner from me had middling to poor reviews; but the hole-in-the-wall that looked like it was decorated in the best of '70s shabby chic had some glowing recommendations.
I went prepared with a photo from a magazine modeling shoot and precise ideas about how not to achieve it. Giovanni did not disappoint.
Look at all that fun and fancy-free-ness that a good haircut inspires!
For the first time in my life, everything about my hair was perfect. I had full fringe, instead of the sideswept stuff, and it looked great! My hair had structure and movement without the jagged mess that straight razors tend to create! Even the flippy right side could be coerced into submission with the barest effort. Too bad we didn't take more photos from Christmas vacation in Florida, because between that and a bit of New York shopping I looked fucking fabulous.
But at the next appointment, I felt more adventurous and returned my boilerplate "what you think would look good" - and Giovanni fell into the trap that several other stylists have done before: the 1920s cheekbone-length flapper bob. I know why they do it: accentuating my cheekbones takes the roundness out of my face, and there's enough Eastern European in my features that they think it can pull off an otherwise exotic haircut. But there's a minimum length for my hair to respond to blowdrying, and my fringe cannot be above my eyebrows (I bore a striking resemblance to Liz Lemon during her brief Dealbreaker! talk show days.)
Ouch.
Assuaging my heartbreak with a new hat (thanks, winter!) I consoled myself that in three months my hair could be back to its former glory.
But then the Star Trek Into Darkness publicity tour veered into New York.
Suddenly, I was going to be meeting a lot of new people, and on a ridiculously hopeful note, wanted to look good if I had the chance to ask Benedict for a photo. So the day before the New York red carpet, I rushed into the salon after work and asked if Giovanni could see me that night. He could not - but another man who worked there could. Fine: I still had the magazine clipping as well as a photo of me with the haircut. Surely this man, a trusted associate of Giovanni, could replicate it.
He most assuredly could not. I did not discover this until the next morning because blowdrying at a salon is expensive, but my fringe was too short and obviously uneven; the sides had not been layered at all and were cut to slant forward, which I expressly told him not to do because the right side would become unmanageable; the whole thing was too long and hung limply. After a bit of crying in the shower, I parted my fringe to the side and pulled the rest of it back, determined to get it fixed - which couldn't happen until three days later, but thankfully the closest I got to Cumberwaffles was a seven person-deep red carpet, and the standby line for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tickets was cut off right in front of me, so at least there would thankfully be no record of it.
Someone in the crowd of us yelled, "Hey, Bendy!" I nearly dropped dead of embarrassment, but he heard it and turned to us with a surprised smirk. The man's good sportsmanship is boundless.
The thing about getting a haircut fixed though, to use a restaurant metaphor, is that it's more like sending back a dish than an improperly cooked steak.
The standards for doneness in a steak are fairly universal - if I asked for medium well and its still bloody inside, that's an obvious do-over. But a dish that has been served for a long time to many other people who enjoyed it, otherwise it presumably would've been taken off the menu, is different. At the same time, there's no other business I can think of that's quite so dependent on the customer's opinion. Our palates are all a bit different, and at the end of the day the restaurant's job is to serve me food that I am willing to eat. Even if the waiter asks why we'd like a dish sent back (for the record, I've done this maybe three times in my three decades) there's no pressure to be food critic-specific because the reason is, unless the ingredients were spoiled or wrong, entirely subjective. It might be fine for everyone else, but it wasn't for me, and that's all there is to it.
But a haircut is different. I can be utterly distressed at the state of it, but to the stylist's eye, it meets all of my criteria. And maybe it does - I don't have the long-distance vision, the expertise or, frankly, the bravery to watch my hair being cut. Sitting in the chair means deep breaths and fighting the flight instinct of so many years' PTSD. I was afraid of looking stupid, incompetent and whiny by calling what might be a perfectly good haircut awful.
But I swallowed down all of that anxiety with a cup of Early Grey and went in for my appointment this afternoon. The man who'd cut my hair on Wednesday evening was mercifully not at the salon, sparing us both the awkwardness of the situation (and possibly public displays of teary anger). Giovanni listened to my concerns, looked at the pictures, ruffled through my hair and apologized three times, assuring me that he'd get an "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt and take a photo standing next to the guy.
My new haircut is still drying, but all signs point to it being just as great as the first one. Everything is OK - for another six weeks.