Since Mandy asked not once, but twice in previous comments, and I don’t have anything else interesting to say at the moment, I present to you:
Jen’s guide for successfully going from very long to very short hair with as little trauma as possible
1. The Decision
Think about it for a long, long time. When you think you really want short hair, think for at least a few more weeks. If you can not go more than 2 weeks without buying some new hair bauble or barette or chopstick-like thing to stick in it – short hair is probably not for you.
2. Will it Suit You?
Be honest with yourself about what kind of hair and face you have. Cutting your hair �bershort like Halle Berry will not make you look like Halle Berry. It may, however, make you look like an androgynous borg. There is a short-hair style out there that will suit everyone – but do not expect miracles. You won’t ever look like anyone but you. The only difference is, now you’ll be a you with short hair.
3. Maintenance
Be honest with yourself about how much maintenance you are actually willing to commit to. Unless you have perfect hair (in which case, I hate you), you will have to purposely style your hair daily. No ponytails – no wash n’ go. Long hair that’s left to its own devices usually has enough weight to it so it looks “sexymessy.” Short hair will make you look like you stuck your finger in a light socket – and not in the good way. It doesn’t take long to blowdry & style short hair (I’m down to 10 minutes), but it must be done if you are going to be seen in public.
Other mainteance required will be regular haircuts. Short hair is actually much harder to maintain than long hair, because your cut will have a great deal of structure. And it is a delicate balance. Leave it too long, and you will immediately look like one of those people in the “growing out a bad cut” stage. These haircuts will also not be cheap (further detail in the next section). If you count on at least $50/month for maintenance cuts, and you can handle that, you’ll be fine. You may also want to factor in a hat budget, for those times when your stylist is mysteriously sick or otherwise unavailable, and you can’t get in for another week (and if your stylist is actually available the next day because he or she is not “in demand,” they are probably not the best person to be maintaining your new short hair.
4. So you’re ready – Now What?
Now you go find a really good stylist. Do famous people come to your town or city? If not, you should find a stylist in a city they do go to. Go where the famous people go. Never go to a chain. Never go anywhere in a mall. Never go to a stylist who has bad hair him/herself. Never pay less than $50 for a cut. Occasionally there are exceptions to this rule. But they are rare and risky. If the stylist can not run his/her fingers through your hair and tell you every problem you’ve ever had with it (too flat, too poufy, too curly, too straight) – run. It is very, very hard to fix a bad short haircut. After all, there is only so much hair left to work with. Also, slightly related to that – ALWAYS tip the stylist. If you do not, they will enact small rage on your hair, and camouflage it so that when you go to do it yourself, you look hideous. If you can not afford at least a 10% tip on the already very expensive hair cut, you can not afford short hair. Also, the stylist should show you how to style your hair once your are doing it on your own. Do not be afraid to poke and prod at your hair while they are styling (not cutting – styling – unless you do not like your fingers anymore); a good stylist will usually encourage you to do this.
My personal experience with going from long to short went something like this: Ponder for 3 months (during which time I chopped off about 8 inches of my dead and damaged hair, bringing it up to mid-back length) – accept short hair lifestyle. Go to very expensive stylist for consultation & style selection. Sleep on it. Return for actual cut. Be treated like a goddess (at least they make you feel like you’ve gotten your money’s worth at the expensive salon). Leave about $300 poorer, but with fantastic hair.
5. Post cut – Now What?
Go shopping (while you are still feeling fantastic) and hit the makeup counter at a department store (bonus point for going to Clinique, because I lurve them). You and your new short hair will now require a slightly bolder make-up look (because your hair is now not the distinguishing factor on your head notifying passers-by that you are a girl). And when I say slightly, I mean slightly. Please do not go all crazy Marilyn Manson with the colours. Go a tint or two darker on the eye or lip colour. The person at the cosmetics counter can help.
You should also invest in some bold earrings. They are fun and fabulous and everyone will see them now that they are not busy getting tangled in your no-longer-long hair.
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And that, my friends, is how you manage to go from long to short hair with a minimal amount of trauma. If you follow my advice, you too can look fun, and kicky (and also drunk) with short hair, just like me.
Jen, I saw your pic with the short hair, and you look Ok but you have such a pretty face that you’d look totally gorgeous with long hair!! You’d look slimmer and more feminine, so I hope you consider growing it out.
Yes but you’d be *more* fine with a slick, stylin’ girl, wouldn’t you? Yeah, you would.
Jen: Actually, I had to do the same when I had long hair, too. Sticking it in a ponytail without at least getting it wet made it look … well, gross and stringy, even in in the ponytail. I can get away with a lot more now.
As for the growing out a shaved head? Definitely not — I’ve been getting regular cuts since August (I figured if I was job hunting, it should look on purose.) It’d be much longer than it is if I were growing it out — I’m keeping it at this boys-cut-length for the forseeable future. 🙂
Honestly, my hair is MUCH easier to take care of at this length than it ever was when it was longer. However, this may be a side effect of my extremely thin, fine hair. There’s no weight to it, so it doesn’t get pulled down into some reasonable facsimile of hair…
Confession: There have been a couple of mornings when I slept through my alarm clock when I didn’t even *look* at my hair before going to work. Clothes, brush teeth, apply deoderant, find shoes, gone. Looking at my hair later, strangely enough, it wasn’t bad. I was impressed.
YMMV, of course. 🙂
Funny – I never thought about Devon & Donna has having “short hair” – I considered them in the “growing out a shaved head” phase. And I’ll admit, I don’t blowdry my hair every day either – usually on weekends I’ll just gel it, and it stays ok (though not really great looking). Letting it dry naturally with no product though – bad idea.
And I think we all agree that while we may not all blow-dry, or not all use product – we need to at least soak the hair daily to look like humans. That’s what I was getting at with maintenance. You can’t wake up, brush, and put it in a ponytail. You have to make a conscious effort to do *something* with it.
I have the opposite problem — thin, fine hair. Very annoying. However, it means that it’s easy to tame at very short lengths (near impossible if it’s anything longer than an inch or two).
I also have a habit of accidently saturating my hair in product because I put a tiny dollop in my hand, and … sloosh, I’m drowning in it.
Lately, I’ve given up on product. I scrub it dry with a towel and let it dry however it wants to. Aside from the occasional weird cowlick, it looks surprisingly good. 🙂
I have super thick hair, too, which requires a complete soak, too. Which I do by showering every morning and rinsing it out real good. That helps with product buildup, too. I would die if I had to wash my hair every day.. it makes my hair so yucky and dry and gross.
And I hear you on the “lots of product needed on thick hair” thing. I go through more hair product that should be humanly possible. My hair is a freaking sponge. Which is why my stylist uses thinning shears on my whole head when I go see her. She takes nearly half my hair off. Otherwise I look like a puffball. 🙂
Devon:
It’s not applicable to everybody, but i have **super thick**, slightly wavy hair.. It won’t keep a shape through sleeping and cannot be coaxed into something other than All Over The Place MESS (and not in the good way.) without being fully saturated with water. Even trying to spritz it a bit to tame it with water doesn’t work since it won’t get the under lying layers of hair (this is why i also can’t take a 10 minute shower. Even with short hair it takes longer than that to get my hair wet and then rinsed of anything that i put into it).
There is always the resolved issue of using product in the hair, but if i do that on day one my hair will look – uhm – groddy the next day. And most forms of product also leech out massive amounts of hair colour, so i tend to not like using them anyway. Not to mention the amount of product you have to use in freaking thick hair 😉
I’ve got it pretty good in one respect though: I can get away with having something as short as chin length hair and, because of the thickness and massive weight of my hair, it will have the appearace of being semi-short, but act like long hair in that it will generally stay nice on it’s own because of the weight.
It’s a shame though because my hair dresser *really* likes me with short hair. She’ll have more fun with long hair anyway — although i suppose that that will mean spending more time in her chair when i do get a cut because she really likes playing with my hair. Meh.
rofl. Donna was posting at the same time I was about nearly the same thing.
Also, hmm. I agree with most of what you’ve said, except for the getting ready in the morning business. I’ve never blow dried my hair, and all I need to do my hair in the morning is about 1 minute, a towel, some product, and my fingers.
Granted, I have my share of bad hair days, but I’m conscious of when they happen. Usually I just don’t care enough to pay attention to what I’m doing. If I pay attention to what I’m doing, I can have fabulous hair with the above routine.
And for those that don’t know me: I’ve had hair ranging from short to very short to bald in the past decade, and many different styles including so-called “high maintenance” layered cuts and plain old buzz cuts. 🙂
…er, washing it every day isn’t necessary, that is. You really should wash it SOME times. 🙂
One note of dissent — while many women have the experiences Jen mentions (probably most, even) it doesn’t HAVE to happen that way.
I went from middle-of-my-back length (which is as long as my hair gets — trust me, I’ve tried) to shaved. The way I see it? Fuck, it’s just hair. It grows. Hair does that. A shaved head is the easiest haircut to look after, period… although you do have to cut it a bit more often, but you can do that easily enough yourself.
Now I’m sitting on short hair again. I don’t think I’ve actually had to start combing it yet since I shaved it. I can usually stick it in the right direction after hopping out of the shower — and washing it definitely isn’t necessary either. However, this may be because I specifically asked for a low maintenance boys cut. The girly cuts would definitely take more work, but I refuse to spend more than a couple of minutes fixing my hair, but I don’t want long hair.
My point? It IS do-able to have low maintenance short hair. Look at how many guys do it.
knemesis: I have very short hair, and I don’t wash it daily. Why would you think you’d have to, with short hair? *confused*
As a long-time short hair person, I concur with absolutely everything you’ve said. People seem to think that short hair is easier to look after. It’s NOT. And the difference between a good short hair cut and a bad short hair cut is subtle in the salon and very, very, obvious on the morning after the cut.
As for why we spend so much on hair cuts? I agree again. It’s got NOTHING to do with the boys or the other girls or anything like that. It’s for US. It’s about taking pride in your appearance. It’s about pampering yourself. It’s about saying “my hair is worth more than a CD”.
There are some people in this world that I know and love who spend very little money on their hair… but it’s either a case of they don’t care, or they’ve managed to do the impossible, which is to find a talented stylist who understands what they want and doesn’t charge very much. That sort of thing only happens on a fluke.
There should be some mention in here that if you decide that you don’t like your short hair it WILL look like shite until you grow it out. Short hair, even with the lovely “transition” hair cuts, looks bad growing out.
That said: people seem to like how i look a lot better with short hair, but i hate *having* to play with it daily and *having* to wash it daily. Washing it daily is bad for the brilliant, vibrant, and non-naturally coloured hair dyes that i use, and they’re too dear to my heart to give up (and i know, because i’ve tried. After six months with “normal” hair i was still looking in the mirror and feeling shock whenever i woke up).
Of course, the expressions on other people’s faces when they first see you with short hair after having very very long hair might just make everything worthwhile.
Chris: I don’t know where you find these girls that say they spend money for men. I spend it for *me*.
I could grow my hair out again and go back to $20 cuts – but I enjoy the short hair more. And for the record, I spend about $90 (including tip) every 5-6 weeks for cut *and* colour. And that’s only because my hair grows silly fast.
I went from long hair to short back in the spring. The decision was based partially on my having received a mullet from a hairdresser who didn’t speak English very well. Perhaps, though, it’s my fault for having told her that I’d recently moved to Surrey.
The hair, even short, was a complete mess. I kept going to the cheap-ass places and getting completely random snips off my head. Then I got a job, and decided to try out a real salon. I ended up with a much more manageable cut that two months later has yet to turn into a mop. For that alone, the stylist deserves a medal.
I wish I’d had the money earlier this year to follow your advice. It would’ve saved me a summer of white-afro.
And now I take this opportunity to laugh at girls.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
$50-$300 on a haircut seems rather ridiculous to me. I’m hovering at about $15 every 2 months.
And to all those who say that girls do it to impress boys, they’re not impressing me. I’d be fine with a girl with a $20 haircut.
ok, so maybe you people can help me out, b/c i have a problem that sounds vaguely like something at least *someone* might have gone through already and can give me tips.
i’ve had long hair for my whole life. it’s thick, it’s slightly wavy, like knemesis and devon, and i’m completely sick of it. it is a complete and utter pain in the ass to deal with in the morning so much so that i either put it up in a ponytail, or a bun, which pulls my hair out at the hairline and leaves me with a zillion little frizzies all over my head.
i don’t use a blowdrier because it’s bad for the hair, and i haven’t got the money for a straightener. i use garnier fructis sleek & shine and pantene pro-v shampoo.
i’m starting college this fall, and i’ve wanted a bob-type cut since i was 5 and tried to do it myself. sounds like it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth, but i really want something easy and new. and i’m kinda determined to get a bob.
any suggestions? or maybe tips on how to keep my hair looking nice without blowdrying in the morning? or how ’bout a style idea? or a hairstylist in the massachusetts area that you really really love??
my hair is also mid back and very thick. I use herbal essences and just plain mousse after i get out of the shower. isis, you should get a bob I’ve had one a couple of times before and it’s really easy to maintain. Also if you want get bangs on the side about mid cheek length. Ask for A-line bangs so you can put bangs on either side.
ABOUT A BOB: don’t get a bob, especially with bangs if you can’t stand hair in you face. Most bobs are too short for ponytails, so you constantly have to put your hair behind you ears, therefore giving you the authentic Yoda-ear look