Aw. Hair. No.

If you've been around awhile, you are probably aware that I have an ambivalent relationship with hairstylists.

On the one hand, I am in awe of their skill.  They are wielders of transformative follicular power.  They can make or break a look.

On the other hand, the stylists we see mess up far too often.  It's usually not a skill issue; it's a listening problem. 

While I am iffy about stylists for myself, I have lost all faith in hairdressers when it comes to Nature Boy's hair.  I've tried giving at-length descriptions, bringing photos, pointing to the exact length he wants, hovering, clarifying over and over like the OCD sufferer I am--and none of it works.  They all just do whatever the heck they want anyway. 

Which means every time he gets a professional haircut, Nature Boy ends up with a shortish layered cut and/or Mo bangs. 

I've been cutting his hair myself for almost a year because I'm the only person who doesn't chop it all off.  I do a pretty good job, but the boy has a lot of hair.  Eventually I lose the line of the cut, or he needs a little thinning out, and I don't know how to get it back on track.  So we go to a professional.

And it's always a mistake.

Nature Boy with Shrinky Dink's daughter.
(This is his normal hair length.)



I discovered last week that my long-time stylist, Doris (yes, Doris), moved to another state.  Yikes.  She was a good listener.  A no-frills, get 'er done kind of hairdresser.  My bad haircuts only happened when I went to someone else because Doris was booked.  I'll miss her.

I spent some time yesterday looking at online reviews for local hair salons, and I found a new one to try.  There were a lot of Likes on the salon's Facebook page, and the stylists looked cute and vibrant in their profile pictures.  So I made an appointment and hoped for the best.  I let Nature Boy be the guinea pig.  I selflessly let Nature Boy go first, because he was the most in need of a trim.  (The kid was in danger of inhaling his bangs.  He could snack on them with a flip of his head.)

Thanks to the recommendations of Erin over at Oh Honestly Erin, I was armed with some photos of Zac Efron's hair.  We explained to the stylist that Nature Boy has had several bad experiences with getting all his hair chopped off by hairstylists.  We told her he likes his hair long, but that he needed some shaping.  I gave her two pictures, explaining that Nature Boy wanted the sides and back of the first picture, with the longer bangs of the second one.  I told her we don't want short layers on top because of crazy cowlicks.  She assured us that most of the layering would be at the bottom...

And this is what he got.  (Sorry for the crappy photo quality.  As mad as he was about the haircut, I was just lucky to get a picture at all!)

The Nostril Flare of Pique

It's too short up front and--it's layered all over!  (Elton John would love this haircut.)

Today was all about damage control.  I shorted the sides a bit to reduce the squareness and layered them some to get rid of the poofiness.  And then I funkified it with bleach.  Because the whack job haircut also removed all of Nature Boy's natural summer highlights.  (&^$%$%!)  And in Nature Boy's words, "If I have to have a sucky haircut, I want to make it as funky as possible with highlights." 

Here is the "after-after".  It's cuter since I fixed it, but it's still not what he wanted.

And speaking of whack jobs, bad hairstylists make me wish I had mob connections.