Be Careful What I Wish For

I didn't like the "bob" haircut, so I looked around for another stylist to reshape the first cut into the picture I found that showed exactly what I wanted. I should have checked this stylist's credentials or figured out from the appearance of his shop that he probably wasn't what I wanted. Too late after he'd butchered my hair, all the while talking about how he was exactly duplicating the picture.

My hair went from Bob to boy-cut, about 2" long all over my head. Nothing I can do about it after the fact, but my gut told me not to have this stylist cut my hair, and then I laughed that feeling off and sat in his chair. To add to the total effect, my hair is naturally curly as I've aged, so the short cut is curly, with wisps sticking out here and there. Y likes it, but I don't share his enthusiasm and hate the thought of appearing in public with this ridiculously short, curly mop of hair on my head.

The only blessing in all of this is that my hair grows fast, so I should look a bit better in say 3 months or so.

Stylin'

Going to the beauty salon is, for me, a trial. I know how I want my hair to be when I walk out the door at the end of the session, but I obviously don’t know how to communicate that to the stylist. Yesterday, for example, I downloaded a picture of Lisa Renna from the internet because one of the styles she once wore was exactly the way I wanted my very long hair to be cut. I talked to the stylist and explained clearly that I did NOT want a “bob,” but I wanted a shaggy short cut – just like the picture. Because her English was limited, she called over another one of the stylists to translate for me into Spanish – just so we were clear on my expectations.

I have a shaggy bob. It’s not shaped into a short, hug the back of the neck haircut like the picture I brought in. The top, rather than being a big longer, is shorter; the middle part of the cut is pretty good; the bottom of the cut is too long to be anything other than a bob. As I kept referring to the picture for what I wanted, I felt confident I was communicating clearly because, after all, a picture is worth a thousand words, but the picture was in English and she spoke Spanish, so I got her interpretation of the haircut, rather than the haircut.

During the process, I tried to provide guidance. When the back was still really long, I picked up the picture and showed her how it came to the bottom of the ear, not the top of my shoulders. She did cut it shorter, but it’s much longer than both the picture and my expectation. The front has that funny too long look that most of the bobs I see have, what looks to me like the cut is unfinished, and the pieces of hair stick out. I tried to blend them behind my ear, but that’s not the way the hair is cut, so that’s not the way it’s going to be.

The good news is that I’m going to dotter’s house and she has a really good hair-dresser who may be able to fix the cut. It’s not that it looks bad, and Y says he really likes it, but it’s a bob—and I didn’t want a bob. Funny that the only word out of the conversation that my stylist seemed to translate was bob.