I’m a bit mad with my hair.
Not purple streaks and shaved patches mad, but mad enough to have taken some serious risks with my locks over the years.
Here, I have listed my most ridiculous hair-related ventures; ranked from stupid, to plain mental:
- Being a hair model for a trainee colourist, who bleached six inch-thick streaks onto the top of my head
- Allowing someone to style my hair who used the words: ‘I let the hair show me where it wants to be cut’
- Allowing another person to cut my hair into a 1920s style bob because she had ‘a feeling that my cheekbones would look great’
- Getting a blunt fringe in Japan – home of anime
- Asking to have four inches cut off at my first trip to a French salon
I eventually dyed out the skunk streaks (not before photos were posted in the salon’s main street window); clip-in extensions got me through the worst of my mullet, and my 1920s bob was actually pretty flattering.
But my Japanese schoolgirl fringe lingered, heavy chunks persisting in the front sections of my hair for about a year as I attempted to grow it out, back to something a little less cartoon, and a little more chic.
And that four inches that lay, discarded around my salon chair almost a year ago…it still stings. My hair grows, to my shoulders, then stops. I could go shorter, for a more deliberate, daring look, but memories of my lengthy locks keep me caged within the most boring style I could possibly have.
One mane-iacal moment at the shears, and I may be destined for a mid-length middle-of-the-road ‘do for far longer than I’d like.
I think I might have finally learnt my lesson.
1. Chose your style carefully.
When I decided to get my fringe cut in Japan, I didn’t think about what exactly I was doing and where exactly I was doing it.
Japan. You could say, unofficially, the home of the fringe.
But just picture it for a second, a Japanese fringe. Black, shiny and silky. Heavy and long. Wide. Often paired with pigtails and a middle part.
HANNAH THIS IS THE WRONG PLACE TO GET A FRINGE.
And yet, my mind was made up, I couldn’t possibly live without hair on my face for another second.
It had grown out within minutes of leaving the salon, and it involved most of the hair in the front quadrant of my head.
Worst of all – it was unfixable. The only thing I could do was wait until it awkwardly grew out; no trims allowed, lest I prolong the painful process.
2. Bring pictures. Many pictures.
Oh, don’t think I didn’t take pictures of Jessica Biel when a nice little Japanese lady hacked off the front half of my hair (to be fair, it was never going to work).
But one, straight on picture, shown momentarily during the ‘consultation’ isn’t enough.
When I visited the salon in France, I took about eight various celebrity hairstyle shots that consistently conveyed the kind of shorter style I was thinking of.
And they were on the money. I swear I got exactly what I showed them.
But that wasn’t necessarily the best thing for my hair. What I should have done, I can see now, is tempered the celeb snaps with real-life shots of my own snip history. How I style it when it’s shorter, how it behaves when it’s shorter, and even which different colours I’ve had before so they could get a sense of my taste.
Taking photos of Jennifer Aniston when you’re clearly an Alexa Chung is only counter-productive to the end result. They didn’t know me from a bar of soap, so they took the pictures I offered, and ran with it..with no consideration of how it would actually work for me.
3. Google Translate…before your appointment.
I thought my trusty Google Translate app would get me through my haircuts around the world. It was my best friend at the supermarket, so why not in the salon chair, right?
Computer says no.
Turns out that a lot of the words used in hairdressing are a bit fruity, and quite different from country to country.
Case in point: FRINGE = BANGS.
I’m frantically attempting to translate ‘ombre’ and ‘layers’, while the stylist wrinkles her nose in complete confusion.
If you have a crack with Translate (and a thesaurus) while you’re on the computer at home, you can easily see which words are not going to work, and try out some other possibilities.
But if you happen to be visiting le coiffeur in France, maybe just print this out.
4. Be picky with the salon.
I was lucky in France; my first salon experience actually came off the back of several recommendations, so I was somewhat at ease.
If there’s no one to ask yet, you could always try a service like Yelp to look up your local – even if you can’t read the reviews, you can at least make some kind of assumption based on the star rating!
I always do a bit of window-shopping when it comes to salons too; the posters, magazines and even the stylist’s haircuts will give you a big clue about whether it’s worth trying.
5. Keep it simple for your first attempt.
Hey, you don’t know them, they don’t know you, and to top it all off, you can barely communicate.
No need to go crazy with a whole new style right out of the gates!
I have a habit of going to the hairdressers when I’ve got it in my head that I need a massive change…and this has not served me well.
Ain’t no shame in asking for a little trim on your first encounter, and working your way up to something more dramatic with them..if, or when you’re ready.
6. Learn to let it go.
Ultimately, when you can’t have a proper conversation with your stylist, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to get a few surprises along the way.
The haircuts and colours I’ve had in my time abroad may not have been exactly what I wanted, but they were different, forcing me to work with something I wouldn’t have normally have asked for. An inadvertent step outside my comfort zone.
Which, I think, is kind of a good thing to do to yourself every now and then.
At the end of the day, hair grows and colour fades. You’re abroad, no one knows you – who cares!?
7. And if you really can’t deal, do it yourself.
I’ve been here in France for a year now, and I’ve had numerous haircuts, with varying degrees of success.
Most recently, I asked for a trim and tidy up from my now-regular stylist.
As is her standard, she cut my fringe French-style, with an electric razor, graded into the lengths around my face. Then, the thinning shears came out, as she chopped short layers into the rest of my hair.
Nothing terrible or unexpected – I’m thankfully past that now – but still, not exactly what I want. Because maybe I just don’t want a French haircut.
Sometimes, it’s worth exploring the idea of keeping your style tidy at home. With the proper tools, it can most definitely be done, and as you get better at it, you might find you’re quite capable of giving yourself exactly what you were looking for.
All I know is my current bathroom fringe is doing more for me than my anime bangs ever did!
