The next day…
Oh GOD I
hate it!! I hate it, I hate it! It’s too short, it is way too short, why did I get it cut so short, what in the name of Bonaparte's balls possessed me to do this?!!
This is the
haircut I had when I was 18 - it’s the frigging ‘Rachel’! No one has the Rachel
cut anymore, not even Rachel! Not even old episode of Friends with Rachel in
them because they digitally altered every episode to give her new hair so no
one ever had to think or speak of the Rachel cut again.
The shortest layers barely reaches six inches, and longest is just about shoulder length. The ends have been feathered, textured and assimilated to within an inch of their tiny lives. It looks sharp, and….and pointy, and….and edgy! I’m 33; I am the opposite of edgy. I’m a good 40 feet away from the edge, on a pile of cushions, eating salmon straight from the packet and yelling at Twitter for not listening to me.
I don't want fresh and fun hair. I want dramatic, serious hair. Hair that questions your morals.
I peer hopeless into my bathroom the mirror,
chewing my nails and a leg of comfort lamb. On one hand, I am tormenting myself – it’s
been a long weekend, and my hormones have blessed me with tired skin, blemishes
and about 3lbs of water weight; this is not a good day to be critiquing my
appearance (or to be a man reading this post). Still, I try to reason, this was
my old style… I should be able to pull it off. I haven’t changed that much,
have I?
But something is just not right. It looks older.
But something is just not right. It looks older.
And that’s when it hit me, like a shotgun shell;
it is The New Look. The terrible three worded lie that hairdressers hand out to
women in their 40s and 50s. “Ooooh, how long have you had your hair like this?
You know what, we are just going to lop off all of that neglected mummy frizz
and give you a whole new look!’ It’s the go-to cut for bored stylists, the one
no one argues with in the salon because it looks so ‘fresh’ and ‘fun’ and
‘light’. And we all fall for it at the time, us foolish females.
There is an old fashioned but still oft quoted ‘rule’ my mother used to talk of*, and it is that long hair is a young woman’s game, and at some point in your
30s you will be hunted down and punished for so much as dipping below the
shoulder line. A bit like Logan’s Run for your head.
My last boss used to have this haircut, and she
was in her 50s. I look around the office, and see it everywhere on women in
their 30s and 40s who simply don’t need it.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this.
 |
| Don't look at me!!!! |
Oh, how I
miss my long hair. It’s been three days, and I’m in the throes of withdrawal. I
miss trying to look like Bardot, with her tousled locks, bed-head volume and
messy ‘Fuck you I’m French’ updos, and I miss failing every time. I miss my French
plaits wound into my scalp, I miss doing that curling and brushing out thing
that make you look like porn star.
I miss my
style. A style normally born by younger boho women who secretly dream of a
short, edgy look…
I won’t yield again, though. I don’t care what
decorum dictates, I will wear my long tresses proudly to my death bed. And if
they’ve snapped off by then, I will glue them back on.
But it’s
not so bad really. It will grow back. My hair grows quickly. It will grow back.
A day later…
I’ve washed
it now. It looks alright, actually.
*For the record, my mother told me this in reference to herself. She didn't drag me out of my bed when I was nine, brandishing a pair of scissors and saying 'it's time'. Plus she died when I was 25. Although those WERE her dying words. I think.
*For the record, my mother told me this in reference to herself. She didn't drag me out of my bed when I was nine, brandishing a pair of scissors and saying 'it's time'. Plus she died when I was 25. Although those WERE her dying words. I think.
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