Why you should never get your hair cut by someone named Beyond

I’ll let you all decide who saw Beyond.

The results are in….

There would be more to this but since work is totally getting in the way of my personal life this week (that is a joke by the way, calm down everyone), all I can manage for right now is pictures.

This is how I went in to Devachan Salon Friday morning:

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And this is how I came out Friday afternoon:

Bad lighting aside, what do we think?

I’m having a hair crisis

Every day I wake up, shower, and attempt to tame the mass of hair on my head.  Leave-in conditioner, leave-in conditioner SPRAY, gel, smoothing serum.  Those of you with curls can relate.  Those of you with straight hair can just sit there quietly and stop basking in the ease of your morning ritual.

I SAID STOP IT!!!!

ARE you through?  MAY I continue now?

Good.

So like I said.  I am having a hair crisis. I have this constant inner battle.  Between my annoyance with growing my hair and my desire for it to be long.   I trim it, clean the ends up, get it all ready to grow.  Then, like clockwork, six weeks later I am itchy to do something to it.  Cut it.  Dye it.  Something.  But since I’m kind of in love with my color I always end up chopping it.

Another reason I usually spring for the cut is that I get frustrated by wearing my hair the same way EVERY SINGLE DAY!  Curly hair + humidity = frizz and poof.  Frizz and poof + workplace and sense of acting “professional” = faux hawk and (if not right away, definitely by lunch) ponytail.  Do you know boring that is?  Very boring.  Some mornings I even get up way early, plug in my curly iron and try to twist those little guys into something workable.

But I can’t do this every day.  I can’t live with the stress.  The frustration of a perfect hair day shot to shit the second I step outside.  So I made a decision.  I live in New York City dammit and I can find anyone to do anything I could ever need.  So I found a curl specific salon.  And I did it.  I booked an appointment.  I have a wedding to attend in a few weeks that also includes a weekend at the House of Boo (read: the boyfriend’s parents) so I need to spruce up a bit.

Then something happened.  The SAME thing that happens EVERY SINGLE TIME I book a hair appointment–even if I only just decide to book one and don’t actually get around to booking it.  My hair starts to behave.  It’s miraculous.  The curls are all uniform and perfect.  Any amount of product, even on days when I skimp, seems to be exactly the right amount.  And instead of fading and drooping halfway through the day, my curls stay bouncy and wonderful for the whole day.  It’s as if my hair KNOWS that a cut is imminent and it is trying to change my mind.

Don’t cut me Lauren, you’ll lose all this pretty curl.  Don’t cut me Lauren, you’ll regret it.

And now I’ve started to panic.  Maybe I will regret it, I think.  Maybe, instead of my curls just sproinging properly, they will ‘fro out to volumes never before seen, rendering all my product skills unusable and my appearance unmanageable.  Maybe they will cut layers so awkward that one bad weather day will have people thinking I previously resided in a trailer park in mid-Kentucky (read: mullet).

But I have to relax.  I have to remember that before Wednesday, when I finally booked this appointment, my hair was deserving of MANY a time out for its bad behavior.  And I have to trust that these people are professionals.  This isn’t Supercuts.  This is an entire salon devoted to curls.  And it’s in a city that attracts people from all over for it’s, well, skill with making people look good.

I have to relax.  I have to put down the gel and hand over the scissors.

Curl me baby, curl me right

I am over my summer hair. This is a problem because, well, it’s not technically summer until next week. But I don’t care. I am OVER it.

In case you’ve never looked at my picture I have curly hair. And I have a lot of it. And it is big. So, to recap, I have big, poofy hair.

If my hair is short, I tend to look like this:

Except…you know…female.

And when my hair is longer, and I attempt to tame it (aka blow it dry so I can straighten the living shit out of it) I look like this:

Except…you know…without the freakish clown makeup.

So, as you can guess, this is kind of an issue. And when it’s hot and humid out, well, I look like Monica Gellar in The One in Barbados.

So I pile on the products. First the curling spray/leave-in conditioner. Then the gel. Then the smoothing serum. It looks good. Then I walk outside and….POOF! Cute hair is gone and poofy, ridiculous, uncontrollable fluff is back.

And there’s nothing I can do with it. Every day for the last few weeks I have twisted the front pieces of my hair into a little baby faux hawk and the rest of it just hangs in there, poofing and fluffing and doubling in size, despite its outer edges being crispy and crunchy from the gel. Then, about halfway through the day I get so annoyed with it and so overcome by hair claustrophobia that I have to pull it back and get it entirely out of my way. And it sucks.

What’s a girl to do? I can’t straighten it, which is really the only chance I have to make it do anything different. It’ll frizz out in moments and be a half an hour that I could have been sleeping. I can’t just leave it down–the faux hawk is the only thing standing in the way of me and frizzy little fly aways (well, mostly).

The result? At least 3 times a week I complain to Boo about how much I hate my hair and how I’m going to shave it and how I hope he still loves me when he sees me looking like I walked off the set of The Bald and the Beautiful.

Of course, he says he will because Boo is awesome like that. But I’m pretty sure if I pull a Topanga and hack out some of my hair in the hallway (to prove a point, of course) he’ll be wishing that I were still a little poofy head.

I really just wanted a trim…

Sunday afternoon Boo and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and took a walk along the river. After roasting ourselves for about an hour, we decided the walk back should be done in the shade, so we headed toward 2nd ave for the trip.

I’d been feeling a little hair cranky lately, like I needed to dye it or cut it or something it. Since there is no point in dying my locks pre-summer, I settled on a trim. Unfortunately, I live in New York City and it’s hard to find a salon where you can still get a double digit hair cut. I mean, if all you have to do is cut 1/4″ inch from the bottom of my hair, why should I give you $150 for that?

So as we strolled down 2nd, we passed a fairly reasonably priced establishment and thought we’d give it a shot. I walked through the front door and one of the stylists lumbered over and glared at me. Assuming this was my cue to speak, I stammered out that I was hoping for a hair cut. She just pointed to the bench and Boo and I took our seats. We joined a woman who was putting her slightly damp hair in a banana clip, which seemed a bit odd, but we didn’t think much of it at the time.

The stylist barked “You ready?” to the guy on our other side and he jumped up and got in the chair. The 2nd stylist had finished her customer by this point and addressed the banana clip woman.

Stylist: Do you know what you want yet?

Banana: I always knew what I wanted but I guess I wasn’t explaining it well. That woman didn’t seem to know what I wanted and she got very pissy with me about it. I didn’t want to make anyone pissy. She just didn’t get it.

*Note: awkward to hear old women say “pissy.” Also awkward to mention “that woman” when she is standing 3 feet away from you. Just saying.*

Stylist: Well what makes you think I will.

Banana: *awkward pause….*

Sylist: Well, I guess I can try and understand you.

At this point, Boo looked over and asked me if I wanted to leave. For as much as I hate my hair some days, he knows that I really do love it and don’t want to put it in the hands of someone who can’t understand what the client is asking for. I decided to watch Banana Clip and see what she’d been asking for.

Turns out it was layers. If you can’t handle layers for a person with stick-straight hair, you can’t handle the curly mess on my head.

We stood up and walked toward the front door but were stopped by Stylist #2.

“Are you coming back?”

We wanted to answer something along the lines of “Hellllll no! I don’t want angry/confused people near my head with scissors.”

Instead I mumbled something about not wanting to be late to the thing at the place with the people.

In case you were wondering, we walked up and over a few blocks (after stopping for pizza to settle our nerves) and I found a pretty spectacular salon where I got an adorable little cut for $2 more than I would have at Edward Scissorhands’ place.

Calling in humid

Dear Employer,

I am writing to let you know that I will not be making it into the office tonight. I am calling in humid.

The humidity for the past week has been, approximately, 179% Now, this is of course an exaggeration, but my hair seems to think it is an accurate depiction, thus the reason I will not be coming in to the office.

My hair has nearly doubled in size in the last few days and I can no longer contain it. I have curly hair, it happens, but I can no longer overlook the fact that people are concerned about my “recent electric shock.” That Albert-Einstein-forgot-my-comb look is out. To be fair, I’m not sure that it was ever in in my lifetime.

And so, since I am lacking an afro pick and flowered dress, I am calling in humid. The air is hot, the office is cold, and Pippi Longstocking braids are not on the dress code.

Thanks for understanding. I’ll be back when the rain subsides.

Lauren

Fro down, you’re growing too fast!

Humidity is a curly head’s worst nightmare, so you can imagine how poorly I sleep during the summer.

Everyday, I get out of the shower, some of my anti-frizz conditioner still in my hair in the hopes of combatting the poof, and begin the taming process. Depending on my mood–and on what products are closest to me–I start spritzing, gelling, and smoothing. A little Fructis, a little Suave, a little John Frieda. Leave-in conditioner, smoothing serum, curl spray.

Everyday I do this. And everday I get out of my car–a mere 40 minutes after the completion of my hair-care routine–and am welcomed (note the sarcasm) by a phenomenon I can only describe as “cone head.”

Scratch any images you have of the movie “Cone Heads”–this is an entirely different concept. This is the unfortunate result of humidity mixed with humidity-fighting products.

Your poor, defenseless, locks are so encouraged to curl (because of the necessary curl-enhancing/de-frizzing products) that they poof out to, well, a fro that would make Diana Ross jealous. The humidity apparently, for lack of a more scientific term, hyper-activates the plentitude of products.

Now I know that all of you people with straight hair are thinking, “Um…hello?! Why don’t you just eliminate the products?” The reason is simple.

You’d be able to see my hair from space.

Curls just wanna have fun

I have curly hair. I am one of the few women in America…in the world…who actually likes her curly hair.

Like it or not, I really enjoy straightening my hair every so often. Plus, I like to freak people at work out with it. For example, the graphics guy today who said “You straightened your hair…you’re like, a completely different person.”

So imagine my surprise when, a week after a hair cut, I straightened my hair only to find that it wasn’t, well, straight across the bottom. Which led me to wonder: Just how hard is it to cut hair?

My hair is pretty low maintenance, curly or not. Wet it, line up the ends, cut. It’s that simple. I don’t mess with layers. It isn’t short. It’s just there. And it just needs to be cut.