New Haircut Blues

I’m nothing if I’m not honest, so let me lay it all out there for you. I’m in a terrible mood this morning. And I got a bad haircut. This means that I look a bit like a pissed off pomeranian.

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to cut my hair off. Its summer. Its hot. I’m ready for a fresh look. Cut it off! So, I get the name of a great stylist from a friend and head off to Fairfield armed with my picture of Nicole Richie’s hair. I should have known the minute I walked in that there would be issues. The hair salon was gorgeous. It was the kind of place where you look over your shoulder the whole time for celebrities. And the girl doing my hair was fabulous. But in expensive salons like this high maintenance hair is common because most of the people having their hair done most likely can afford to have someone do their hair every single day. Like there was a woman sitting next to me having her hair done and I swear she had her own entourage with her – an assistant, a stylist, a friend, and someone who kept saying, “It’ll look faaabulous when its photographed…” Now THAT woman can afford high maintenance hair because she has a million different people who can do it for her.

So I get this faaabulous haircut. And it really does look fabulous when I’m sitting in the chair. But I already notice how much effort it takes the stylist to do it. There were no less than 4 pieces of equipment and 3 creams used to create the “effortless” look. This left me this morning trying to figure out how to recreate the look with a hairbrush and blow dryer. Tricky. Very tricky.

I managed to get it into something resembling a style in my bathroom this morning. It didn’t look anything like what it did at the salon, but it didn’t look bad. And then I stepped outside. It rained last night and was 80 degrees this morning and anyone who has thick hair will tell you that this is a deadly combination. My hair suddenly blew up. Seriously. I opened my front door and my hair inflated. Like one of those self-inflating rafts. In ten seconds, I looked like Bozo the Clown – a mass of red frizz.

And the first thing that came to my mind was “My mother was right. Crap.” For years my mom has said that my hair is too thick and curly to be cut too short. And once every 2 or 3 years I ignore her and cut it anyway and then hang my head in shame as I wait for the inevitable I-told-you-so (although, being the sweet Southerner that she is, she has never once actually said it).

So here I sit. Hair as big as a Texas news anchor. I look like a Southern suburban housewife. The kind with the football helmet hair who carry a giant bottle of hairspray on them at all times. Not that there is anything wrong with being a suburban housewife (its one of my secret fantasies), but when you’re a 25 year old working professional, you don’t really want to go for the look that says, “Hi, I drive a mini van, wear gingham, and enjoy a stiff gin and tonic.”

I really wish frontier bonnets were in style. A baseball cap can’t really contain the level of frizz I am dealing with here, but a good Laura Ingalls Wilder bonnet would do the trick. And that is my dilemma today. Do I prefer to be ridiculed for looking like a giant red cotton ball or for wearing a bonnet in the workplace? Choice, choices, choices…