The Sign of a Bad Haircut

I've been so busy with holiday related activities I haven't had the chance to blog about my recent haircut. Last Friday, I got my hair chopped off (this is where the story would end if my husband were telling it, but since this is my blog and not his I'm going to provide much more detail).

I had actually been planning for several months to get a big haircut. I was inspired by my friend Quillen, who donated her hair to Locks of Love in February. At the time of her haircut, mine was already pretty long, so I figured I should just let it grow the few remaining inches until I had the minimum ten inches to donate. A few months later I discovered another hair donation program called Beautiful Lengths that creates wigs for women who have lost their hair during cancer treatment. Since this cause is really close to my heart, and since they only require 8 inches instead of 10, it seemed like a good fit for me.

By the late summer, I probably had 8 inches I could have cut off, but there were so many layers around the front I decided to give it some more growing time so that those layers would catch up, which would give me even more hair to donate. My friend and stylist Ryan apparently didn't understand the concept of growing out my layers, so I ended up getting a haircut this fall which actually made my layers shorter and put me farther from my goal of having all-one-length hair. I decided that I'd just keep growing it until next spring, and then I'd make the ponytail cut for Beautiful Lengths after a few of my layers got to be a full 8 inches.

The problem with my plan was that a few months ago I started "shedding" excessively. When my shedding hadn't really slowed down by the beginning of December, I decided that I should just go ahead and cut my hair now, since with every passing day I felt like I had less and less to donate. Even though the front layers were only 6 inches or so and couldn't be used for the program, in the back I was able to cut off an 11 inch ponytail.

So here are my before, during and after pictures that Chad took at my haircut on Friday.

Me before my cut

Ryan removes the ponytail

It's clearly shorter, but Ryan has lots of work left to do

Later that evening

A pic from yesterday, so you can see a little better what it looks like from the side

The weird thing is that Chad claims to actually like my haircut this time, as opposed to the other times I've gotten my hair cut short during our marriage. I think it makes me look older, which is certainly not ideal, but other than that I like it too. I got a few thoughtful compliments from family members over the weekend, but then today I started to think maybe my haircut might be less than attractive. Although I didn't spend a lot of time outside of my basement office today, of the approximately 10 people that I ran into somewhere in the building, not a single one said anything about my hair. I think that's the sign of a bad haircut! Don't you think if people thought it looked okay they would say something? I find it hard to believe that people didn't notice, since it doesn't take a detective to spot 11 fewer inches of hair. Then again, maybe some people just aren't very observant.

I did have one coworker who commented on my hair, but again, I don't think it was a good sign since this was the conversation:

Coworker, standing in my doorway: "Did you get a haircut?"
Me: (Dramatic pause) "Nope."
Coworker, looking confused: "Really?"
Me: (Awkward pause, since my joke didn't really work) "Uh, yeah. I did."
Coworker: "Oh, I couldn't really tell. I thought maybe it was tucked into your shirt."
Me: "Uh, no. I actually had about 11 inches cut off." (thinking how uncomfortable it would be to have 11 inches of hair tucked into your shirt)
Coworker: "That must have taken a lot of weight off your head."
Me: "Uh, no. Actually my hair didn't weigh a lot."
Coworker: "Well, it looks nice."
Me: "Thanks."

My theory is that if it takes an entire conversation about your new haircut for someone to mention that it looks okay, then maybe it doesn't really look okay!! The good news is, Chad's opinion is the only one that really matters, and if he (who has always preferred long hair) says it looks good, then that's the only compliment I need! :)