It takes 2 weeks to form a habit but has anyone done a study on how long it takes for women to accept the beauty changes they make? It might just be me, but every time I make a change, especially to my hair, it’s several days until I come to terms with the ‘new’ me. I’ve experienced this phenomenon with smaller changes, too like getting my belly button pierced and trying new make-up styles. However, I get my hair done more often, so I really notice it for that. I feel like I have a pretty conservative style in terms of clothing and hair. I like it and it works for me, but I have tried a few bolder things with my hair and this is the first time I’ve gone through my cycle of acceptance and not accepted the change.
Since this story relates to my hair, I’ll use that as an example. My cycle usually goes something like this:
1. The Realization
Typically, I’ll wake up in the morning and look in the mirror while brushing my hair and realize that it’s been way to long since I saw my stylist. As a result of this, my hair looks more like straw than hair. I tend to schedule hair appointments at a time where I want it to represent a change in my life such as starting a weight loss journey or becoming a mom. I usually schedule my hair appointment when I want to make a change in my life, but also when my hair looks like crap and I can’t style it anymore.
2. The Idea
Once an appointment has been made, I usually get on Pinterest to do some light research. I have a pretty conservative style and a preference for long hair. I don’t have anything against women with short hair, but I’ve always seen a feminine beauty that comes along with long hair. Also, as someone who has struggled with their self image for a long time, I tended to lean towards styles that were long-hair friendly. Even as a little girl I used to have hair past my butt. My mom told me a story of when she was a little girl how her and her mom loved her long hair. She went to stay with her aunt for a weekend and ended up coming home with a pixie cut because her Aunt thought long hair was impractical. As a little girl, I remember thinking that was the most devastating story and I cried probably as much as my mom did after she saw all her hair was cut off. I’ve always liked long hair, but to some extent I think I also liked it on behalf of my mom who was so upset that she lost her long hair when she was a girl.
Since length wasn’t something that I ever played with much, I used Pinterest to help me find experimental ideas for colour and bangs. I’ve had front bangs, side bangs, long bangs, short bangs, and even self-cut bangs. I’ve had my hair highlighted numerous times, I’ve had lowlights, I’ve played with red highlights and dark highlights. I’ve even gone through a phase in University where I box dyed my hair eggplant purple, various shades of brown and blonde and even fire hydrant red. You know what? I think I pulled off those looks really well (especially the red). I think I kept my hair various shades of red for almost 2 full years. It is my favourite colour after all, and I have natural red tones to my hair so the colour stayed quite nicely for me even though red can be a pain to maintain. Once I’ve pinned a few photos, I head into the next stage.
3. The Excitement
Now that I’ve figured out what I want, I get really excited about the idea of having a change to represent the ‘new me’ I’m going for. I also love visiting the salon because it’s nice to pamper yourself. There’s nothing more relaxing that having someone play with your hair! I also don’t mind the smell of the salon. I’m one of those weird people that like the smell of markers, paint and hair dye.
Being at the salon is relaxing and my current hairdresser is a friend so it’s nice to catch up with her while I’m getting pampered! She’ll do my hair and then do the reveal and I’ll be pumped because all the hype makes it look great. Plus it’s been professionally styled, so it looks red carpet ready. I’ll take some pictures for social media boasting about my new style, get home and go to bed feeling invincible with my new cut/colour only to wake up the next morning in the next phase.
4. The OMGWHID
Which stands for “Oh My God, What Have I Done?”.
I wake up in the morning and my hair looks horrible! To be fair, my hair looks horrible when I wake up pretty much every morning, ha! I have no idea what I do in my sleep to wake up like Anna from Frozen, but it’s not a pretty picture! So, I go to style my hair and without fail I expect it will look as amazing as it did the day before because it’s the same hair cut, right? Well, take it from a girl who didn’t even learn how to use a straighter or apply make-up for anything other than dance recitals until University. There is nothing on the planet you can do to make hair look just as good as it did after being styled by a professional… unless you are a professional… in which case send some tips my way because lord knows I need it! However, you know what? Knowing that it’s not going to look the same/as nice does not in anyway make you feel better after you spend an hour or more in front of the mirror playing with a straightener, curling iron, hair spray, a crystal ball, eye of newt and wing of bat because sorcery is exactly what you would need to replicate that look.
5. The Acceptance
I think my cycle of acceptance also has a Richter scale to determine the length, duration and severity of my recovery time. The more radical the change, the higher the number and the longer my recovery time is. I find straight colour changes are relatively low, like a 1 or a 2 depending on how radical the colour is and I’m usually over it in 24-48 hours after I’ve had a chance to wash it a few more times to have the colour mellow out. Hair cuts are usually a 4-5 when I’m going with a drastically different style. I think they’re harder for me to adjust to because they’re more permanent than hair colour is. I know it’s not great for your hair, but if I REALLY hated a colour, I could dye it back to normal. I can’t exactly make my hair grow back over night if I don’t like my new hair cut. I think my recovery time for this is usually 4 or 5 days. Cuts and colours, like what I had done this time is usually a 6-8 on the Richter scale and typically takes about a week to adjust to just because it’s so different from what I had before.
I mentioned I cut my own bangs in University; I went with a blunt front bang…. It was actually supposed to be an angled side bang, but I am far from what I would call a stylist. It ended up being very straight, so I turned it bucket bangs because I figured that would look less odd. That was a radical change for me. I really loved it for 24 hours and then I woke up the next day and realized I looked like my mom. Not that looking like my mom is a bad thing, but it took me a couple days to adjust to the fact that having the same or similar hair style to my mom doesn’t make me look old (Mom if you’re reading this I’m not calling you old, I just mean I don’t want to look the same age as you. No offense, I’d like to look that I belong in University as a students, not a parent). I would say cutting my own bangs was a 4 whereas my trip to the salon this week was a full fledged 9. This is drastically higher than I’ve ever experienced with any hair cut I’ve ever done before, and it really threw me for a loop.
Maybe I don’t adjust to change well? Either way, my recent appointment followed my typical change of change until I reached Stage 5. I realized my hair needed to get done because it was getting long and annoying but I also wanted to do something different so my hair would look nice for pictures if we enter lockdown again soon. I made an appointment and hit Pinterest for some ideas, I didn’t really know what I wanted but I pulled a few pictures and started getting excited for a new mom style so my hair would spend all it’s time up in a bun because it’s hot and in the way while with Thalia.
Thankfully she’s stopped pulling hair, however, I spend a lot of time bent over playing with her and holding her hand while she walks. When I do this, my hair falls in my face and I can’t see what’s going on unless it’s up. I put on some pump-up music for the drive to the salon (almost 45 mins since I don’t live in London anymore), and I was feeling excited for a new look and for a chance to catch up with a friend. Looking back, I think that was actually half the problem, I was so busy chatting with my friend, and stylist, that I wasn’t really paying attention to what she was doing. At first, I didn’t think anything of it since she was just putting colour in. I kind of just told her to do whatever for the colour since I was undecided.
I wanted to go red-ish balayage or some other fun colour, but it can be difficult to maintain and doesn’t look good if you leave it. I would have also been fine if she went for a blonde/lighter route but she decided on a fall colour mix for me. I figured that would be okay since I have naturally dark-ish brown hair to begin with. I figured the end result would look similar just with more dimension, how bad could that be, right? For reference, I’ve been going to the same stylist for a little over 2 years. This sounds like a while, but I have horrible hair maintenance issues so I’ve probably only been in to see her a handful of times. She has always done really good things with my hair before with little direction, so I wasn’t worried.
I think things turned a little sideways when she started cutting my hair, which, for the record she started without even asking what kind of style I wanted. I commented that I was hoping for a shorter style so it would grow out over the winter if I couldn’t come in for regular hair TLC without it driving me nuts from being too long. I felt bad that I hadn’t thought to mention this to her before she started colouring it since the length would impact how she did the colour (probably also a good thing she didn’t end up balayageing it like I had asked for because she likely would have cut all the colour out. Oops). I felt bad that I hadn’t mentioned my cut length before but, in my defense, she also didn’t ask.
She cut my hair into what she called a blunt bob, I have 0 concept of hair terms, so I just smiled and nodded and kept chatting while she cut. (My hair cut ended up. looking a little. like this picture). She had pulled some of my front hair down over my face, I thought she was just doing that to make sure that my when she cut the front, they were the same length. Turns out she had a different idea, she wanted short bangs. Had I known this, I would have very quickly put a stop to it because I HATE bangs!
After having them for awhile in University, I realized what a pain in the ass they were for me because of my cowlick and my lack of desire to style my hair everyday. I know… I’m lazy, but I feel like I have better things to do with my time than style my hair every morning. I want easy, but I also want pretty with minimal effort. A little contradictory sometimes, but the short style I had after Thalia was born was perfect and I assumed that she was going to do something like that for me. Clearly, I need to make fewer assumptions and ask more questions. She’s a friend, and I trust her.
Although I didn’t love the bangs, it looked okay while I was at the salon. I left feeling like maybe I would adjust to the bangs in a few days and everything would be okay. She also straightened my hair as opposed to curling it, which usually I wouldn’t mind but when I was driving home and thinking back to the pictures I liked on Pinterest they looked nothing like what I ended up getting. I hoped that it would look more similar once it had been curled. I spent the whole ride home with a nagging feeling that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Regardless, I like to promote my friends’ businesses when I can, so I took a few pictures and posted them on social media. I’m not sure if my friends are all just really polite or if the style actually looks nice on me but several of my friends commented that I looked good, so I went to bed feeling optimistic that I might like it a little better once I styled it myself. It was a few days later before I had a chance to try styling it myself. The first thing I tried was curling it to see if I liked it any better. After trying this, it was so short by the time it was curled that I felt like a little boy, or at least a little girl with a pixie cut. It was NOT CUTE, and I cried. I tried leaving it alone after showering, my preferred styling method, and that was just as bad if not worse than curling it, and I cried some more. I can tolerate it if I straighten it but I’m hating that I have to style my hair everyday. The hairstyle itself looks really nice when straight, it’s just not really nice for me, no matter how many people tell me they like it. No offence to any of these people (including my stylist), but it doesn’t matter what you think, this could be the world’s best hair colour and style for my face and complexion but if I don’t like looking at it in the mirror everyday then it’s not the right style for me.
I was so upset, and completely at a loss of what to do. Services are tricky. I can’t go back and tell my stylist to cut it longer… at least not for 6 months or so until my hair grows out again. That’s the one thing about hair cuts, I know it grows back but getting up every morning and looking in a mirror and hating what you see for 6 months is not great for your self-esteem.
I know I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, but with all my pregnancy weight gain, adding a crappy hair cut on top really pushed me over the edge mentally. I was at a Richter 9 and was unsure if I was ever going to come down from that. It was around that time that I realized what the nagging feeling I had driving home from the salon was. It was the realization that in addition to a hair style I didn’t like, the colour reminded me of those cheap, fake wigs you see prostitutes wear in the movies. I was 0 for 2 and was really upset a week later.
I’ve never been in a position before where I wanted a do over that bad from changing my hair. I finally caved and messaged my stylist asking if she had any styling tips or hair growth remedies to help me get through this. She suggested coming back to add some layers to make it sit differently. I don’t think I’ll take her up on that at this point. Half of the problem is that I feel like my hair is too short (even though it’s the same length as it was with the style I liked after having Thalia). Also, I feel like adding layers will only make it worse.
Hopefully, my prenatal vitamins will help my hair grow quickly and I can do something different before the holidays, assuming salons are still open (go away COVID!). I don’t really blame my friend, so I’ll probably go back and give her the opportunity to fix it because I usually like what she does for me. Is it bad of me to hope that she’s going to give me a discount on my next service? I’ve never been comfortable going back and asking for services to fix something I don’t like or give me a refund, but I’ve also never been this upset by a service before. Have you had poor service experience? Leave a comment below and let me know what you do about it.
It’s been almost 2 weeks now and I still don’t like the style. I will admit that the colour does look better now. I think a few washes might have mellowed it out, so I feel like I’m down to a Richter 6 now. That’s one positive thing. This is definitely the longest I’ve ever been in my cycle of change and I’m hoping I’ll be out of it soon, although it’s not looking like my hair is magically going to grow back in the next week - I wish! Writing about it has helped, but I’m open to styling tips if you have any! Just keep in mind that my skill level with any sort of styling tool is amateur at best! I’m not going to let this one bad experience curb my excitement and enthusiasm for hair style changes, however, I think the next time I’m at the salon I’m going to be more conservative than usual so I know I’m getting something that I like. Until then, I'll be dreaming about having long hair again, maybe I'll finally learn to style it into beautiful curls like below.
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