The Worst Haircut i Ever Had

Last night at Book Club we were sitting around after the discussions and talking about hair, haircuts, bad hair etc. I told them all my "worst haircut I ever had" story and they all said I needed to blog it. So here goes: (just so you know this happened almost 11 years ago in Kentucky. It is still a little painful to talk about...)

I was almost 8 months pregnant with our daughter Jillian. I had long, curly, luxurious hair that in the middle of a sweltering, humid summer was making me crazy. Our Local Val-pak arrived and in the coupons I found one for Bo-Rics. (Home of the 7 dollar haircut). The thought started swirling in my brain that a haircut was a pretty great idea. After all I would be having a baby and shorter hair WOULD be a good idea. Charles was looking pretty shabby too, so we loaded up and headed to Bo-rics (home of the 7 dollar haircut...dont forget). Plus I had a COUPON! I was saving money! With a baby coming we needed to pinch pennies and tighten our belt. I was hellbent on a haircut and by golly charles was going to take me there to get it.

I had it in my mind what kind of haircut I wanted. SOmething cute and easy, like a bob, that was just a little shorter than my shoulders. I had planned on cutting off about 6 inches. I wanted it a little shorter than this picture, which was from a year previous:(cute huh?)

So we load up, drive to Bo-rics(home of the 7$ haircut) and I grab my coupon.
We walk in and see an empty salon and the two people working that day.

1. A middle aged man with the feathered MacGyver haircut. He was wearing khaki pants and a tan button down shirt. In fact he looked like he was on safari, minus the hat. His shirt was unbuttoned several buttons, showing his manly, hairy chest and a gold chain that I am quite positive was tangled in said manly hair.

2. A fat not-quite middle aged woman with a cameltoe, big frizzy permed hair and garish lipstick.

hmmmmm.

That should have been my first clue.

So MacGyver takes me back to the shampoo bowl and washes my hair. I told him exactly what I wanted, where I wanted it cut to.

He starts snipping away, and as he is cutting he is trying to even it up and it is getting shorter, and shorter and shorter. He would cut trying to even up the sides and kept making one side shorter than the other and then would go to the side that was longer and try and even THAT one up, finding it now shorter than the other side. When he finally got it right, my wet hair was now BARELY to the middle of my neck. I stared in the mirror, barely able to comprehend what had just happened. I crumpled the coupon in my hand, twisting it nervously, angry with myself for wrecking my hair...AGAIN.

Oh but wait, it gets worse.

So then MacGyver asks "Would you like bangs?"

me: uh, sure, just small so I can curl them down. Not too thick and not too short

MacGyver: Ok, can do!

MacG goes to work...snip, snip,snip.

I kept thinking "when did bangs start in the middle of my head?"

he just kept snipping. and snipping. And snipping. It looked like I had a dog and a litter of puppies on the floor around my chair. Every few minutes I would look down and a new puppy was added to the pile.

He swiveled the chair around and started blow drying my hair with his fingers. No brush. No comb. just fingers.

when he was done he swiveled me back to the mirror.

I looked.

It was gruesome.

THIS is what stared back at me:

I looked like Inigo Montoya. Only my hair, instead of shoulder length or shorter, was JUST UNDER MY EARS!It was halfway between my earlobes and the middle of my neck. It was half straight, half curly from the finger blow-dry. My bangs, did indeed, start from the middle of my head and one half went the right side, the other half humped up and over to the left side. I had a butt cut on the top and a short inigo montoya on the bottom. It was heinous.

I started to cry. I looked around for Charles, only to find him in cameltoes chair. She was giving him the "george clooney caesar" haircut. One problem. He isnt george clooney. Oh yeah and she wasnt even doing it right.

So he gets out of the chair, I out of mine, we pay WITH OUR COUPON.(it was all sweaty and crumpled from being twisted in my fist) We saved a grand total of 2$. So Bo-rics(home of the 7$ haircut) sent out a coupon "Save 2$ on your next haircut. Limit one per household". Yes, I paid FIVE WHOPPING DOLLARS for my haircut.

We run out to the car and I am crying, crying, crying. I am sobbing buckets about my hair.

Charles looks at me and starts laughing. "you look like Inigo Montoya!"

I am crying so hard now I am hiccup breathing and my fat pregnant face is swollen and red.

"Yeah, well you look like a fat non-George Clooney! Charles, why did you let me do this to my hair?"

"well, Sarah, you had a coupon and I couldnt stop you."

We started laughing and then I cried for 2 more days. I had to pin my bangs over to one side with bobby pins for 2 months until they started to grow out.

It was THE WORST HAIRCUT I have ever had.

Moral of the story: Pay more than 5$ for a haircut. If you cant, then find someone who doesnt look like they stepped out of a 1980's primetime drama or someone who doesnt wear so much hairspray you could light them on fire. And just because you HAVE a coupon, that doesnt mean you have to USE it.

Twist of irony here: I go to Empire Beauty School, which is owned by Empire education group.

Can you guess which hair-cutting place is owned by them?? Give you a hint. It is the home of the 7$ haircut.

irrational fears and scary hair dreams

In 6 weeks I start the advanced clinic for school.

I get to go on the floor and actually deal with people.

Real...Live...People.

Not that it scares me. I have been cutting and coloring hair for years.

But my biggest fear is that I might (gulp) mess someone up.

And not because ofsomething I did wrong These irrational fears are never my fault. It is always the customers fault. When people want their hair done they are in a "now" moment and will lie through their teeth to get what they want. I have seen it at school, I hear about it all day long. Trust me, you have a lady hellbent on highlights she will leave with highlights come hell or highwater.

My greatest fear is that I will have someone sit in my seat who swears to me up and down they have a lye relaxer. They know it in their heart of hearts. So I give them a Lye relaxer touch up.

Turns out they had a thio relaxer instead, and I just put a lye based relaxer onto their head, effectively creating Nair and burning all their hair off, rendering them as bald as Gordon on Sesame Street. They will  promise me they have had no metallic dyes put on their hair(like the Just for men etc), only the store bought Ultress or Clairol.

So I go ahead and color them them and it turns out they are mistaken. They have been using a metallic dye and their hair turns neon green, unfixable, and no amount of red based color can fix it, I am forced to shave their head.

Or they tell me they want to cut all their hair off, like the newest Katie Holmes Pixie cut , so I oblige and then when I am done they burst into tears and say "I didnt know it would be so short!"

sigh.

Of course I have scenarios that are my fault as well:

Ripping off eyebrows with wax that has overheated, leaving bleach on too long and causing their hair to burn and break, burning someone with a pressing comb, Nails that fall off after just one day... I just have these irrational thoughts that plague me and invade my sleep.  I know I am good at what I do. I am just worried that once I get to the floor my mind will go completely blank and I will forget all of my studying, training and hard work. That first person will sit in my chair and I will clam up tighter than a lid on a jar of pickles, too terrified to move.

It is so different when it is your family and friends you service. When it is a complete stranger, your career is on the line.

I havent always been like this. At first I couldnt WAIT to get to the floor. We flew through the first curriculum, then the second, third, fourth etc. Now we are starting our last curriculum and then we are off to the races. There is no going back. 

so I must prepare myself for the inevitable... Dealing with the public and creating good hair.

Oh well, I hear that night terrors are good for burning off calories.

HAIR WRECKERS ANONYMOUS

Hair Wreckers Anonymous

My Best Friend Lindsey and I have been through some Major hair disasters together.
Ever since we were 15 years old we have been coming up with new and inventive ways to destroy our follicles.
She,( with a series of bad perms, dye jobs and a summer of “The Rachel cut”), and I ( with bad dye jobs, and a SLEW of terrible haircuts) started our own Hair Support Group: Hair Wreckers Anonymous (HWA)
She and I are the original founding members. We are card carrying, home perm loving, bad dye job partakers of HWA. I even laminated up some fake business cards to carry in our wallet.

It started with “The Bob”...

I have very thick, naturally curly hair. When I was 16 years old, I decided I had grown tired of my long, luxurious, unsullied mane. One day out of the blue, I decided to cut off all my hair , and go with “the bob”. I went to my hairdresser Kathleen and explained my vision, to which she replied, “Oh sure I can do that” . She went to town. There were foot long pieces of curls littering the floor, down my cape, on her shoes...everywhere. She cut my hair into the standard bob, my hair evenly short all the way around, ending mid-neck…THEN she dried it with the diffuser on the end of the blow dryer. As the moisture evaporated, the hair shrunk…and the curls appeared…and my hair shrunk some more. By the time she was finished what stared back at me in the mirror was a riotous mass of curls, ending barely under my earlobes. My hair was crinkly and crunchy from the mousse and hairspray and diffused curls. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I meekly paid my money, drove home and promptly washed my hair. I let it air dry overnight and when I awoke, the bob looked little longer and the curls only slightly more natural looking.
I went to school and got a lot of “wow, what did you do to your hair” and “wow, you sure cut a lot of hair off” and “you look different with short hair”. I thought it was going rather well. People hadn't really said anything negative about it after all. THEN it happened. The first international incident of HWA:
Around 6th period art class Ed and Matt came sauntering in. Now Ed and Matt lived solely to torture me. They were of one brain/one purpose. We all sat at the same table. We all hurled insults back and forth on a daily basis. There was no love lost between me and Ed/Matt. Ed turned his gigantic noggin to look at matt and said “Hey Matt, look, it’s an up arrow!”. He said it loud enough for the whole art room to hear. Heads whipped around to see what the fuss was about...and saw Ed pointing to my hair. Laughter ensued yadda yadda yadda. For the next 4 months I sported “the up arrow”.
WHY my hairdresser thought this would be a good idea is beyond me. How long had she been cutting my hair? She should have KNOWN better than to do that.


Well it could be worse. In fact, it has been. I have been through countless hairdressers, who have all given me priceless HWA memories-

I have sported the "Jamie from Small Wonder")(Thanks Ginger)---->

<-------The Inigo Montoya of Princess Bride (Thanks Boricks)

AND

The k.d. lang constant Craving (Thanks Fantastic Sams)-------------->

WHY DO WE DO THIS TO OURSELVES??

It is in a girls genetic make-up to destroy her hair. Around the age of 10 or 11, a beast emerges and REQUIRES a girl to do terrible things to her scalp and follicles. The poor hair doesn’t have a chance. Lindsey and I have been through a lot of follicle disasters throughout the past 17 years.
We have dyed our hair the same color(meaning we buy dye to change our hair color and when all is said and done it is the exact same color we started with) , terrible colors and more. We have permed, straightened, curled, cut, shagged, highlighted and crimped. We have had to buy wiglets and hair pieces to cover up our disasters, worn many a hat in our day, and are practically sole shareholders of the ponytail holder company.

The following story is paraphrased from a real conversation:

(ring ring)
SARAH: Hello?
LINDSEY: I am going to kill myself.
SARAH: What happened?
LINDSEY: Well Kelly, my sister in law, has a friend who does hair. This girl said she would dye my hair blonde.(authors note: I could sense what was coming) So I agree and she comes over. My regular hair dresser, Sue, refused to dye my hair, so I had to go behind her back to get it done. Well the whole time my scalp is burning and on fire. It hurt like hell.
SARAH: Uh –oh. What happened?(already aware something disastrous)
LINDSEY: It turned orange!
SARAH: WHAT??
LINDSEY: Yes, so she came back to try and do a second coat on it to see if that would help. Again the burning and itching. Now my hair is fried and falling out! I cant go back to Sue, because she said she wouldn’t do it and I went behind her back. WAH!
SARAH: Can you dye it darker?
LINDSEY: I cant keep dying over it, it will make my hair worse and worse. I have a friend at Zanos. I will call her and see what she can do.”

Fortunately, Lindseys hair was (mostly) salvageable, and Lindsey(mostly) learned her lesson about backroom dye jobs and the phrase”I have a friend”.

…2 weeks later…
ring ring

LINDSEY: Hello?
SARAH: Lindsey I am going to kill myself.
LINDSEY: What did you do? Did you wreck your hair?
SARAH: Maybe…
LINDSEY: What did you do?
SARAH: Well I decided I wanted to go back to a little more red. This summer being at the pool and out in the sun so much has really killed my hair. It was all bleached out and and really light. So I went to Eckerdts and got the same dye I have always used.
LINDSEY: AND????
SARAH: Well I dyed it and when I rinsed I got out of the shower and was towel drying my hair when Charles came in the bathroom and said “You know your hair is pink right?”
LINDSEY: WHAT?? No!!, pink?
SARAH: Yes, PINK!
LINDSEY: well is it maroon pink, or is it kind of a purple pink or what?
SARAH: no its “Im coming out so you better get the party started” pink!
LINDSEY: NOOOOOOOOOO
Sarah: YES!
LINDSEY: How did this happen?
SARAH: Well I used the same color as I have always used, but the problem was I always had darker hair. This summer really lightened my hair almost to a strawberry blonde, and this dye was meant for darker hair color. I didn’t realize it would do this!
LINDSEY: OK, go back to the drugstore and get a dark brown dye. In 2-3 days color back over it with the dark color and it should balance out.

Thankfully Lindsey was right. I did however have to endure 2 days of shockingly fuchsia hair. As I colored over it, it turned to a brownish pink. Well anything was better than the pink. Gradually through being in the sun and at the pool it kind of faded back into a more normal color.
From this lesson I learned never to dye my hair without first consulting the box and not to grab “what I have always used”.

Thankfull we have been incident free for the past few months. I did 2 years ago finally find a hairdresser that i ADORE (emily at Fusions Salon in Matthews NC) and she wont let me do bad things to my hair. She does not bow to the almight dollar. She is a good, kind soul.
Recently I went behind her back and dye my own hair. Luckily it turned out well, and I wont have to go to her in embarassment and a "help me".

Lindsey has mostly been able to keep her hands off her hair. i have had no further reports of her wrecking gene kicking in.


If you or anyone you know suffers from Hair Wrecking addiction, please join HWA today.