Can I Walk Down the Street with My Hair Like This?

Photo from iStockphoto

Has this happened to you?  Your stylist spins you back around to face the mirror to unveil your hair and you are shocked and not the least bit amazed.  You either look like you are twelve again or you look like your grandma’s running buddy at bid whist.  You try to fix your face so that your true thoughts of “are you kidding me” are not quite so transparent.  Sometimes the other women around you will lie to you and tell you that your hair looks nice.  I guess everyone hates to bring another sister down. 

 

So what do you do?  What is the appropriate response?  The answer seems deceptively obvious but the truth is that the answer is “it depends.”  If you are new to a salon, you should give the stylist the direct feedback of how you like to wear your hair.  You may have come into the salon with a hat so she doesn’t know how you like to rock it on a good day.  She just sees the bad hair day you.  Or maybe, you have just requested a new style and her interpretation was a bit different from yours.

 

But what if you have been wearing your hair the same way for months (sometimes years) and your stylist still misses the mark when it comes to styling?  In that case, you must evaluate the overall health of your hair.  If you are satisfied with the condition (if not it may be time for a new stylist), sometimes you just decide to give lackluster styling a pass.  As long as you have a comb in your purse, you have options.  You can make a bathroom stop before you leave and subtly reshape your do.  Or you can wait until you get at least 3 doors down from the salon and restyle on the street or in your car.

 

I admit that I have stooped to both.  Sometimes you know that you are making a trade-off between health and style.  It’s a lot easier for you to style a full head of healthy hair on our own than to let a careless stylist hook you up once and then send you on a “hair project” pilgrimage.

 

One of my friends told me that she did the bold move of actually grabbing her stylist’s comb at the station to style her own hair right in front of the stylist.  She basically punked her stylist.  I have seen this happen once in a salon but minutes later a more senior stylist stepped in to rescue the pissed off client.  In my friend’s case the stylist actually admitted that my friend made an improvement.  Miracles do happen.

 

Another friend always says that no one can do her hair like she does.  Sometimes that is true.  Unless you are Oprah, most likely you are styling your own hair more than anyone else.  You know the look that makes you feel like your best you.  There is nothing like staring in the mirror at a hair style that doesn’t reflect the woman that you are.  It’s like you are looking at a stranger. You ask yourself “is that who she thinks that I am?”

 

Please send me any other ideas of how to navigate a bad hair style.  I may need it one day.