Spring is in The Hair

About ten years ago, I decided I had spent much too much of my life on my hair. So I gave up on the idea of having some specific type of hairstyle. A hairstyle seemed to involve things like blow-drying, curling and/or straightening, and products. Lots of products. To clean, to moisturize, to tame the frizz, to make it shiny. I enquired of Kim, who had the dubious pleasure of having cut my hair for five or so years at that time, what would happen if I just quit fighting the curl, let my hair do what it wanted to? Would it be possible for her to cut my hair in such a way that would give it some shape and tame it somewhat? Voila! Maintenance free hair! Since that time I have lived in the world of low maintenance hair and have never looked back. I wash it, condition it, throw in some anti-frizz gel, and shake it out into a sort of free, curly look that seems to work pretty well. There is still the occasional disaster, which brings us up to one week ago. Last Thursday I received perhaps the worst nightmare of a haircut I have ever had in my life. I was there the whole time and somehow didn't realize how bad it was until the next morning. Chunky layers. Uneven layers. Bangs, I don't remember asking for bangs! The dreaded pyramid effect that emerged while it was drying. Out of desperation I wore a baseball cap to work. Then Friday afternoon I walked into another salon, removed the cap and asked Stephanie if she could fix it, it was already too short in spots and I knew the only fix was to go even shorter. And fix it Stephanie did. I'm almost used to having a little breeze on my neck again and have accepted that it will be midsummer before I can sport a ponytail once more. I've had a number of compliments on the change and I have to grudgingly admit I like it. My intentions last week were merely to get a trim to shape things up. But I ended up with a very unintentional whole new 'do that's pretty okay. I've even been told I look ten years younger. And I must say that is a compliment I enjoy hearing. I don't know if I'll adopt this 'do as a regular look, but it is in the low maintenance category of wash-gel-and-go. One thing's for sure. It will grow. I will need a haircut. And next time I'm going directly to Stephanie and cutting out the middleman. Thereby saving some cash and loathing.