haircut woes

One of the things that kept me from cutting my hair short is the fact that my hair grows at abnormal speeds, and it takes way too much effort to keep a short haircut, short. So a low-maintenance haircut, ends up needing a trim every 1.5-2 months to ensure that it stays the way it’s meant to, and I don’t end up looking like a gollywog. Not so low maintenance, if you ask me!

Anyhoo, the point I am getting to is a new haircut that happened more because I didn’t have a choice, than because I wanted a new haircut. While the new look has grown on me and I like it now, my immediate feelings towards it were disastrous. The haircut was a product of what happens when hairdressers don’t listen, don’t bother to understand their clients hair, and basically don’t do their job.

The last time I chopped off my hair and went really short, I had the very understanding, creative and good-with-his-scissors Nadeem give me a really nice look. This was in Bombay. I loved it. It took zero maintenance, was a wash-and-wear look, and I felt it knocked a few years off my face. Maybe I just felt that way because Iv had the same old boring length of hair for over a decade, and I did nothing else with it, but tie it in a ponytail, only leaving it loose when I was feeling brave.

Like I said: my hair. Growth. Abnormal speeds. Which means 2 months later (which was already too late); I really felt I needed a trim to get the original look back. The one Nadeem gave me. Ideally I would have waited to make a trip to Bombay again, and pay him a visit and get the job done. Totally dependable. No hassles. No tension. But given the rate at which my hair continued to grow and with no Bombay trips in the foreseeable future, and also because it seemed insane to go to Bombay for a haircut, I decided to go get it trimmed at the neighbourhood parlour. All I wanted was a trim…not too much to ask for, you’d think right? I thought so too, but evidently I was very wrong.

The very gay looking “senior stylist” at Neomi’s who claimed he was a visiting consultant and had his own salon in Bandra in Bombay, offered his services, when I was patiently waiting for the person assigned to me. He confidently flourished a few compliments my way and told me I needed a haircut that would show off my face, a radical look that would make me look younger. While I didn’t fall for it immediately, and told him my haircut was radical enough for me and all I needed was a trim, I was getting impatient at being made to wait so long despite having taken an appointment. So I agreed to let him trim my hair, since he seemed so eager, looked confident and seemed like he knew what I wanted.

Ten minutes later, when he said he was done, I found myself looking like an oversized mushroom. The layers were gone. The curls were gone. The look was gone. He had failed to merely just follow the instructions I had given him. I know my hair, I have dealt with it for all my life. I know that without layers, my hair looks horribly oversized. I know that blow drying my hair is probably the worst way to deal with it. I know that I needed to just keep the look Nadeem had so carefully given me. Yet, this foolish man didn’t do anything that I had asked for. He did his own thing, made me look like an oversized mushroom, and indignantly sat there telling me Nadeem had given me a bad hair cut.

This is what happens when hairdressers try and outsmart their clients, when all they are required to do is listen, and do as theyre told to.

To avoid walking out of there looking like an overgrown mushroom, I did the only thing I could do. I had him chop it all off. And luckily for him, I could make peace with the end result. If not, I would have punched his sorry face in, tied his skinny arms and legs in knots and walked out of there in a huff. So the next time you want to mess with my hair, think twice.