True Life: Bad Haircut


There are worse things in life. Far, far worse. But maybe the stress of juggling jobs, eating too many meatless corn dogs and too much Speculoos, and PMS made me go a little crazy today…

While getting a trim, I tried to communicate what I wanted to the stylist and I guess I did a bad job (Rule #1: always bring a picture) and four inches later I was all “Wait, WHAT?!”  leaving me with, ahem, much shorter hair than I intended.

Lady felt so bad.  She confessed “This isn’t my best work” and promised me “I won’t let you leave looking like this” (which almost makes it worse?  Isn’t that like the dentist interrupting the drilling to say “Oops!”) and said she wouldn’t charge me, but I gave her tip money for spending so long trying to fix it. 

Then I ran home and cried. 

Yes, there are far worse things than looking like Dora the Explorer on meth for a couple of months.  And now I can laugh about it.  And post overly staged photos trying to make myself look pretty with short(er) hair:

Which, it turns out, looks longer when photographed from above!

Be real with me people…have you ever cried after a haircut gone horribly wrong?  Be honest!  I know at least one of my readers must have had a hair-raising bad experience. 

20 responses to “True Life: Bad Haircut”

  1. Well, okay. FIRST OF ALL, yes. I have had some horrifying haircuts. The worst one was my mother's fault. Apparently, she thought I would look super cute with a (sigh, sigh, sigh) Peter Pan-like cut. I was 7. It was the worst six months of my childhood because literally EVERYONE thought I was a boy.

    And then a couple years ago, I made the mistake of going to an Aveda school salon. Bad move. I should have known something was horribly, horribly wrong when the student stylist in the chair over looked at the back of my head and went, "Oh, I've never seen someone do highlights like that before…" and my stylist responded, "Yeah, this is my own 'special' way of doing it." I wanted to scream, "NO! NO NO NO! I DON'T WANT THE SPECIAL WAY! I WANT THE REGULAR WAY THAT DOESN'T MAKE OTHER STYLISTS COVER THEIR MOUTHS AS THEY PASS BY THIS STATION!" It seriously took her four hours to do a partial highlight and at the end…her instructor came over and told me they would be giving me a free re-do with a different stylist. Because, I swear…my hair looked like a blondish dalmatian. I had bleach spots ALL OVER.

    Secondly, I am not just saying this – you look BEAUTIFUL! I know short hair feels so weird after you've had long hair for awhile but it's very flattering on you and you have a great natural swing to your locks that makes that kind of a-line bob really sophisticated looking! It looks really healthy and it's going to grow so fast – it'll be long again before you know it!

    So sorry it was a bad experience. I have totally gone home and cried over my hair before, too.

    • Ack BLEACH!!! Underqualified hands should not be allowed near BLEACH!!!

      And anyone who says they're doing it "their special way" is really saying "I couldn't be bothered to learn the real way, so this is my excuse."

      I should totally use that in life – every time I fall down I'll just shout "I'm FINE! This is my SPECIAL WAY of climbing stairs!"

  2. Yes I absolutely have, but I actually really like your hair like that!

    There was one time when I first moved here to VA and was still trying to find a salon and I found one that was pretty cheap. Which should have been a red flag in the DC area, but I figured they couldn't mess up a trim, right? Well the trim itself looked fine, but when I asked her to trim up my bangs (which were straight across bangs) she went ahead and turned them into angled bangs, but WAY too short angled bangs! SO it just looked like I took kitchen scissors to my bangs and crookedly chopped them off. Ugggh it was awful.

    • I never let a stylist touch my bangs. I ALWAYS cut them myself. I have a method. It takes hours. But bangs radially alter the look of your face. Bad bangs can change EVERYTHING!

    • Yeah, I was thinking about curling it forward in the front, to look kinda flapper-ish? Given my luck, the "Roaring Twenties" look will soon become popular and everyone will forget that I started it. Ugh! Trends.

  3. Okay, first off, your hair looks great. Nothing wrong there at all.

    I got my hair cut/blonde-ed on the weekend and I was nervous when the stylist was all "I haven't bleached anyone's hair out this light since hair school"

    to which I was thinking, oh my god, she's going to make my hair fall off.

    But it was okay. I usually cry after getting my hair done though, even if it's good. I think it's just my way of processing the change.

    Loving that we're posting twins today, us and our hair updates ๐Ÿ™‚

    • It is a big change, I suppose, even if you like the new style. I was also mega-PMS, so maybe "normal" Meghan wouldn't have reacted so strongly! I don't cry much, except at nightmares and Pixar films! I swear!

  4. First let me say, based on these pictures I think your hair looks great! Honest!

    Second, yes…I have in fact (more than once) cried over a hair cut. I remember the great "Mushroom cut" debacle of '98. I am not exaggerating when I say it looked like my head was a mushroom. It was hideous (and I was all pre teen hormonal) I think I cried on and off for a week about it. UGH. Anyway – I think I've heard taking vitamins helps your hair grow faster…? :/ Besides, generally the first week of a haircut feels weird for me, after that I'm usually used it it at least. Hopefully that's what'll happen for you. ๐Ÿ™‚

    xo, kass

    xo, kassie

    • Thanks! I'm already getting used to it, I like to swish it around…and it's nice to be so radically different from everyone else (holla, contrarian)!

    • Technically, me neither. This was a Supercut, lacking in "Super" but emphasis on the "cut." I always have great experiences there, and find their stylists usually err on the longer side of what I ask for (so I have to keep saying "A little shorter please?") but this lady was off her nut!

  5. I have had really bad haircuts, and I've had okay haircuts that I panicked over because I thought they were really bad for about 24 hours and then I calmed down and decided it was okay after all. I'm not getting another haircut until someone I know recommends a salon and vouches for it first.

    • A lot of people have recommended good places to me through facebook. And apparently there are ways of getting great haircuts for 20% of the cost…let me know next time you want a haircut!

  6. TOTALLY unrelated to hair, but everyones comments about what their hairdressers have said made me think of a time I had blood taken- I said I wasn't good with blood or needles, so the nurse says "bear with me, it's my first time doing this for real!" (WHY WOULD ANYONE SAY THAT, LET ALONE TO SOMEONE WHO JUST SAID THEY WEREN'T GOOD WITH THIS!) & after she (finally) hit a vein & managed to get the blood out, she shook it in front of my face and said "Oh, look how nice and dark it is!" *died*

    Moral of the story, some people need to rethink their professions ๐Ÿ˜‰ your hair IS cute, you're making it work!

    • Wow, I think there's an epidemic of bad nurses with needles! My mom went in for minor hand surgery about ten years ago, and the nurse botched her I.V. so bad, she bled all over the floor! Blood freaks me out like nothing else. But everybody has to do something for the first time before they become and expert, I guess…

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