Sat 23 Oct, 2004 10:24 pm
I despair.
Ok. I have, as it happens, naturally curly hair.
I have a certain way I like it cut.
It seems easy to me. Indeed, I have cut the front just right often enough myself. It is the back I have some trouble with.
- I want the length at the bottom to be the same all around.
- I want the length of the top layer to be quite a bit higher, say, two or three inches.
- I want a nice wedgy angle inbetween.
This is easy to me. After bottom is level, hold hair out at right angle from head and cut at desired angle. Keep going, matching sides.
I just had my about 45th bad hair cut today, for $42.50, including tip.
Tonight I fixed it myself. Er, mostly. Grrrrrrrrrr.
I have spent 10 and 12 dollars for haircuts at places like Supercuts and Mastercuts, and have, from time to time gotten good cuts and crumby cuts.
I have gone to regular beauty parlors with coffee served and dulcet music on and spent $35. plus tip, and gotten occasional good haircuts and many poor ones. Have spent, once or twice but not often, up to $60. Still, short angle, or sort of clumpy.
Back in late June, or was it early July, I cut my hair off in my hotel in San Francisco, and came back to delighted cries of oh, your hair looks great, where did you get it cut?
Tried a new place today, going in with hair, if you pulled it out from head, still at close to a perfect wedge four months later, though too long from what I now perceive as a shortsighted view, and came out with layered clumps, poorer financially. This time the beautician rubbed the back of my neck an oddly long time, in a protosexual-seeming way, thanks anyway, but stopped after what must have been the required sixty seconds. I spent the time trying to relax and considering sarcasm. I prefer to choose who kneads my neck.
So, now it's short again, by my own hand.
I have tried drawing what I want.
Explaining what I want.
One guy told me I meant a 'graduated bob', and proceded to do it right.
Next time I went in, I cheerfully asked the same guy for a graduated bob and got precisely the wrong thing, long in back, short in front.
But that was lower money, and he's okay. Still, I didn't rush back.
Yes, I've shown a picture, of me on my before last driver's licence, when it happened to be right. To little avail.
How can we talk about politics when a haircut is impossible?
Oh, so sorry Osso! I have problems finding a good cut, myself. My hair is mostly straight and fairly fine. If I don't get good layers, it looks dead. I have found that paying lots of $ doesn't equate with a good cut. Paying very very little $ usually does equate with a bad cut. So, something between? Have you ever had a good cut that you didn't do your self?
Yes, about a year ago, by the guy who did a bad cut the next time...
The thing is, the principle of the cut is so easy to me, I keep being hopeful, and I don't seem to communicate it well.
Maybe I need a wig on a stryofoam head to describe it with...
Oh, I hate the wishy washy cutters. My last cutter was like that. If I got her too late in the day it made for a bad haircut.
My new guy is pretty consistently good. Not always great, but good.
Aren't there any famous people or other photos you could bring? I might try the wig thing, if I were you.
Picturing bringing wig into hip salon....
I'm considering just cutting it myself, it looks fine right now.
We'll see in the morning.
Oh, well, first of all, forget about the hip salons.
I got 2 outrageously expensive cuts that I didn't like at the salon my sister goes to. I told them I didn't want 'professional woman'. I told them I wanted choppy, sassy, and flippy. Did they listen? Nope.
Go to a small local shop or chain.
I have extremely thick straight hair and like you Osso, I'm not always satisfied with a salon haircut...that's why I always try to cut and perm it myself.
Not to disrupt the women talk and make a digression, but I hate the haircut. Actually I want that my hair never grow. :-)
That's all we have here in nowhere in north north.
I suppose when I was down in S. Francisco for the photo show I should have psyched out a good place. Instead I did my midnight cut in the, what was it, Prince Edward Bed and Breakfast on Lombard. Or some name like that. Nice people, firetrap hotel. Noisy. But near stuff. I don't mean to complain, I liked it.
Okay, here we go with consensus, long or bald or near bald.
(mine being on the short side now)
Long, you can see the back if you pull your hair around .. given a certain mirror situation. I could get pretty close at my just above shoulder length. Heh, I have looked in reflecting mirrors, my cut is ok, but not as smooth as beauty osso would wish. But then it will all curl in the morning and be sort of forgiving. I say, hopefully.
I guess I should explain. I am fairly clumsy as a middle aged woman in space, galumph, I even walk into things, but I had, early on, excellent hand eye coordination, which I found out by teaching med residents some lab work re filling one millimeter holes with a teensy needle - hand control. I haven't lost all that, and have a bunch of design background. Not to protest too much, but to say I am not the complete clod I act. This just to explain I am not sleeping tonight as Godzilla revisited, but somewhat shaggy.
She says, fluffing her curls.
Oh osso, I would never think you anything but classy.
I have, thanks to hamburger mostly, a lot of lumpy (some call it wavy) thick hair. Finding someone who knows what to do with a pair of scissors around it is tricky. I often come home looking good for about 4 or 5 days - and then the hair starts to fill in and I look like a floor mop again.
Classy classy.
I don't know how to communicate haircutting. I speak in generalities, put myself at their mercy. The last one didn't really listen to my generalities either though. I have schizophrenic hair, it can be straight or quite wavy with urging. Step out of the ocean in Florida and let it dry in the sun, way curly. Middle of the winter, vigorous brushing, quite straight. I went in on a straight day and he decided to give me a cut that is supposed to be one of those blow-dried straight dealies. That's not me. I ignore the blow-dried straight part but the cut works against the naturally wavy part, so it's not that inspiring. Wearing it in a ponytail most of the time anyway, it's fine.
Will try to emphasize wavyness next time.
For years and years I struggled with the same problem:
where to find a good hairdresser who listens to my requests.
I am a brunett with long hair and everyone wanted to either chop it off
or do the highlight thing.
Then one day, I saw a teacher from my daughters School who had
a great haircut and similar hair to mine. I complimented her for her
haircut and asked for the phone number of the hairdresser.
When I got there, I could see that the girl had also similar hair to
mine and my cut turned out just the way I wanted it. Ever since then,
my horrible hair days are over.
I think, they key to finding a good hairdresser is, to find someone whose
hair texture is similar to yours.
Since my hair is straight, I do envy you ossobuco - curls are just so
très chic.
Whatever length my hair is, if I just let it dry naturally (after conditioning and brushing it once in the shower, a new trick), then it is very naturally curly-wavy. If my hair is long and I blow dry it, it can be much more straight, if not completely so. The weight of the longer hair helps that, I think.
Jane - neat trick, I'll keep my eyes open for a cutter with hair like mine.
it's very easy to get a good haircut, i stand in front of the mirror and run the clippers all over my head, in about 5 minutes i have the perfect 1/8 th inch buzz cut
T'would look pretty peculiar on me, but I bet it looks good on you!
My self haircut is quite the disappointment today. Curls and sort of blank spots... Schniff.
Well, it'll grow.
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