61 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
61 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
<p>I finally gave in and gave myself a haircut today. Surprisingly, the results
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were not terrible. Along the way, I have learned a little bit about the process
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of cutting hair, and realised that very few parts of this process are in any way
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possible to do well when cutting your <em>own</em> hair.</p>
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<p>I’ve had short (or very short) hair for most of my life. In my mid-teens, I
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tried for a while to grow my hair long and adopt a tousled, curly style, because
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I wanted to look like Kate Bush. It was not a success. When long, my hair has an
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odd wave that is neither straight nor curly, and which resists doing what I want
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it to do. I also found that I don’t like the way that long hair looks on
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me, and find managing and styling it tedious. It blows in your eyes constantly
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when you are outside, gets straggly in the rain, takes forever to dry
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naturally, and I generally find it annoying.</p>
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<p>So the fact that I haven’t been able to get my hair cut by a trained hairdresser
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for about 9 months has meant that I’ve rediscovered again why I dislike having
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long hair. Of course, since I started with a short, layered style early in 2020,
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my hair has looked lumpy and ungainly as it has grown out, but it has
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been the practical issues of dealing with long hair as much as the aesthetic
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ones which have started to grate.</p>
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<p>Last weekend, I got to the point where my natural terror about trying to cut my
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own hair and the potential to make a complete hash of it started to be
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outweighed by how sick I was of having long-ish hair. I watched a lot of videos
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on YouTube of fantastically talented stylists showing you how to create
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beautiful short styles. In the process, I got addicted to the mesmerising videos
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of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBZI3R9yfKU">Sanja Karasman</a>. I could (and pretty much have) watch the calm and precise way
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she sections and snips hair all day. It’s incredibly soothing watching someone
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who knows exactly what they are doing and is highly skilled and experienced. I
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also watched videos made by people like me — untrained amateurs who either
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regularly cut their own hair, or have been forced into this position by the
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impossibility of visiting a salon in lockdown. I learned quite a lot from both,
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but it is one thing to have theoretical knowledge, and quite another to be
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sitting in front of a mirror, scissors in hand.</p>
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<p>Today, I finally plucked up the courage. I had bought two pairs of hairdressing
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scissors (a straight pair of shears, and a pair of thinning scissors), and some
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clips to keep sections of hair out of the way. I sat on a small stool in the
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bath, propped a mirror at either end of the bath (which didn’t work very well),
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and took a deep breath. We have a set of hair clippers too (which Mr. Bsag uses
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to cut his own hair), so I had that as a fall-back position, but I wanted to try
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with scissors first.</p>
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<p>I quickly discovered that it is pretty much impossible to cut the back of your
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own hair in a careful and precise way. I had hoped to graduate the length of the
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back with layers made by cutting sections vertically, but soon realised this
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would be impossible. I had quite a lot of length to remove to get it to a
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manageable state, so I resorted to blindly hacking chunks off the length at the
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back more or less by feel, and getting Mr. Bsag in briefly to level it up a bit
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at the end. The top and sides were a little easier to handle, because I could
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comb the hair forward and see what I was doing better when trimming. I also
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reduced the weight a bit by ‘point cutting’ the ends roughly and also using the
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thinning scissors to blend sections together.</p>
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<p>It took ages, and more by luck than skill, I ended up with something that
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doesn’t look too bad. I’m sure that my hairdresser will be doing her best to
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tactfully conceal her horror whenever I am able to get her to do a professional
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job on it, but I don’t think a non-expert would immediately think I had
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obviously cut my own hair. Either way, I don’t really care. I’m overjoyed to
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have the length of hair which suits me best again, and keep marvelling at the
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fact that it is not getting in my eyes and irritating me. If I build my courage
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up again, I might try using the clippers on the sides and back to graduate the
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length a bit more smoothly, but it’s fine for now.</p>
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<p>When it’s possible to book salon appointments again, I will be eagerly waiting
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my turn to get an expert to work their magic on my hair, but until then, It
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feels good to know that I can perform emergency maintenance with a reasonable
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outcome.</p> |