I’ve had a good chance to really test the limits of my new haircut, now, and everything has been going pretty well. That has led me to ask the issue: could this be my perfect style?
Well: yes and no. Perhaps I’m just within the honeymoon phase with my new, shorter hair, but it does seem to be far easier to style. Although therein lies the rub: I hate hair styling. Even plugging in a hair curling tong gives me palpitations: what sort of monstrosity can i create on my head this time? I'm wondering, as my palms become clammy and I frantically search the chest of drawers for that little heatproof glove. (Those bloody gloves! Make sure they are neon pink, please, to ensure that we can easily pick them out once they get accidentally thrown into the sock and knicker drawer!)
So anyway, yes: I love my new haircut after i have “styled” it (method upcoming, I just need to take some photos of the various intricate – highly trained! – stages, which include tonging, tonging, more tonging after which windmilling my arms to get the blood back to them) but I do slightly miss having the ability to tie it back when I don’t style it, which is approximately 98% of the time.
Although I must say that having it shorter is sort of forcing me into making an effort. Again, this is a swings and roundabouts scenario, because I have about as much energy as a sloth after an aerobics session and zero free time. But if I shoehorn a twenty minute styling session into the week then I can pretty much make the waves/texture/volume last for around 4 or 5 days by repeatedly dousing my hair in dry shampoo. (Colab, obviously, and I’m still around the Paradise scent, if you’re asking.) Admittedly I smell like a wet dog by the time I come to wash it, or like somebody who has spent the weekend lying in a damp pile of grass cuttings emptied from the lawnmower, but it’s worth it to not have to keep on plugging within the Wand of Doom, that ought to require the user to at least pass some sort of proficiency test before they are allowed to spend time alone with it…
I’m going to compile an exhaustive list of the pros and cons of shorter hair, if you have any of your own then please increase the comments section below – anecdotal material always welcome, I do spend quite a long time scrolling through and chuckling to myself whenever you leave your stories! (I’m rubbish at answering, but that’s because I now spend my spare time trying to put waves into my hair and look polished-yet-dishevelled.)
Here are some of my pros and cons so far:
It doesn’t tie back completely right into a bun or ponytail, which is a bit of an arse, given that I spend my life by using it tied back into a bun or ponytail.
However.
When it’s hanging loose, it doesn’t jump on my nerves, so I don’t believe that I need to be constantly tying it back to a bun or ponytail.
It needs product. Whether it’s the space, or the fact that it’s more bleached and for that reason a bit frazzlier, if I don’t use any product it kind of looks slightly unfinished. Luckily, the kind of product it needs (a tiny slick of grooming cream or perhaps a smidgen of oil on the ends) is fast and simple to apply. And I needed those things on my longer hair too, I suppose, it’s just that if I couldn’t be bothered to “do” my longer hair I’d simply tie it back to – yes – a bun or a ponytail.
It’s much easier to tong, wave or curl: there’s simply a smaller amount of it. Well, not less as with less volume, so it still takes nearly as long, but there’s less length to wind round the barrel or roller, therefore it feels quicker and it’s not such a fiddly task.
Finally – and hurrah for this one – it looks better when I don’t blow dry it. I can’t even let you know how happy it makes me to finally come with an excuse not to blow dry my hair. Not too I ever did anyway, but my longer hair admittedly looked much more polished if I’d dried it with some heat – this cut just looks terribly, terribly pedestrian if I try to blow dry it right into a uniform bob. Whereas the naturally-dried version frames my face and appears light and lovely, the heat-dried version is heavy and clunky and lacking in all of the beachy vibes that make the cut so perfect.
No doubt I’ll be bored of shorter hair by the autumn and the “growing out” phase will begin (does anyone else have this eternal self-inflicted hair-cut-then-grow-it-out cycle? what is this life?) and so I’m grasping the bull by its horns and doing as much “short hair experimentation” as I can. Wish me luck…
Many thanks, again, to Kat at Josh Wood Atelier for getting me out of a hair rut – read more about the cut itself in last week’s Sunday Tittle Tattle.
