Growing up, I've always had my weak moments (or hot seasons) where I wanted to chop off all of the dead weight that is my hair. My self-worth has never been in growing the longest, silkiest mane or reenacting a Pantene Pro-V commercial every time I walk down the street. Still, a lot of guy friends groaned and moaned when I lopped off my hair. In eighth grade, the boy I had the hugest crush on (and who definitely had a crush on me!) completely ignored me when I got my tomboy hair cut. It was devastating to my poor teenage ego, and I vowed never to let my hair get above shoulder length. While I watched my best friends transform with short gamine haircuts, I stayed loyal to "long layers and just a trim." I shied away from boy cuts because I always thought that round faces couldn't pull it off.
Now that I'm out of college and past my years of appealing to the male audience, I've decided to get rid of almost a foot and half worth's of hair. My husband gave me his "blessing" and even said, and I quote, "I don't mind if you got like a Pink hair cut." and "Go crazy for once." Says the man whose very opinion kept my hair long and unkempt for the past three years! When we first started dating, he wanted me to grow out my shoulder length hair even longer because it looked "sexier." Sigh. Men.
Which is funny, since they all go apeshit crazy for Halle Berry even though her hair is never past a buzz or close crop. Of course, you also need her damn perfect everything else.
I like short hair. I like the low maintenance. I like not getting a bicep workout and sauna session every time I blow dry my hair. I like pulling it up into a faux hawk. I like tousling it about when I wake up in the morning and leaving. I like the constant showers I get to take. I like it on people with dainty bone structure. Ginnifer Goodwin makes the pixie adorable. I love it on people with beautiful faces. I love the boyish charm. And with my curves, I figured it couldn't take away my assets. If men didn't like staring at my hair, they can stare at what they already were in the first place.
But all I ever hear is, "It goes with a certain face. I think you look better with long hair."
"EWWW! You look like a man!!!"
"I don't think I could pull off short hair."
Lies. If someone insulted you on how you did your makeup or the clothes you wore, would you get butthurt? Most likely you would just laugh it off and chalked up their comments to bad taste. With hair, you will feel a whole lot happier if you don't let it decide how attractive you are. If anything, it will highlight a beautiful face and put you in the spotlight when every other girl has hair down their back. If men don't understand my makeup, why should I care if they understand my decision to cut my hair? Is that man-stranger going to run his fingers through my locks any time soon? No. If anything, I cut my hair short to better nail job interviews, because it screams professional adult woman, not whimpering girl.
I also have some tips for the jump:
- If you wear your long hair every single waking moment in a pony tail and try to touch it as little as possible, change it up.
- If you have outgrown braids, pigtails, hair accessories, bows, pins, blah blah blah, cut it off.
- If you can't stand spending thirty minutes a day styling your hair, give it up.
- If your hair blends seamlessly into a pile of hay and straw in terms of texture due to over processed color and bleach, please just lop it.
- If you don't mind going in for a trim every few weeks and is the type to stick with a style for a long time, you should go for it. The growing out phase is tedious/hideous.
- If you think you have the wrong face shape or even body shape for a pixie, stop! There is always going to be a variation on the cut which will flatter you or make you happy.
- If you constantly hide behind your hair and have played it safe, never going to the hair salon, never doing much for your hair besides washing it, and everything is getting nappy ratty ratchet tangles up in that weave gurllll you need a hair intervention, stat!
All of the above was me, and I've never been happier with a haircut before in my life. Even with short hair, I'll still have the liberty to dye and style any way I want. About 6 hours ago, my hair was down to the middle of my back. Now, it's barely fitting into my fingers. I can't run anything through the back, and the front resembles short bangs. I walked into the closest salon with the best reviews on Yelp (rightly so, I'll tell you why in a bit) and asked for a pixie. Now, I feel liberated. You can see the cut on the side panel in my Instagram account.
The salon I went to is a cute little boutique store with very reasonable pricing and excellent service. Martha at The Pink Door Salon in Garden Grove was a Michelangelo in sculpting out the shape and texture of my pixie without compromising the integrity of my hair or trying to morph its texture into something else. She spent over two hours working with my layers and lengths to get me to the style I wanted. I have two very stubborn cowlicks that would frustrate the hell out of any one else, but Martha just worked her magic on me.
She's also sort of my hairdresser crush.
- She knows her skills. If you want a certain haircut, you had better know what you want because she will get into details on what she will do to your hair and promptly start on it. Those shears going across your ponytail is very real. Very real.
- She keeps the conversation hilarious and lively without being too chatty or faux-friendly. I get to just sit back and watch the master at work when I want to just relax.
- She's more than happy to share with you how to recreate the style at home and wanted me to leave with something I could work with every day.
Basically, she's like the guardian of my hair from now on, and she's only ten minutes away. Check them out on Yelp if you have a chance, I seriously can't say enough good things about my experience or the people who work there.
And you know really validated my decision to go short, the fact that the salon has asked me to model my hair for them for an event that they're hosting, with cut and color on the house! Hair model? Really? I would've laughed if you took my over-processed hair and told me it was hair model worthy. With my short haircut, I feel chic, elegant, cute, classy, professional, grown up, and playfully young all at the same time. The only adjective to describe my old hair style was long. And how did it make me feel? Like I was hiding my confidence behind it the whole entire time.
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