new thread
Hey all, Im new here. Just discovered your GREAT site about a week ago. I have enjoyed alot of the posts and think its great that Longhairs have a place to escape from the discrimination and talk to each other and ask advice. I guess a little background info is in order: Im 27 and have been growing my hair out for exactly 12 months. I had long hair (below my shoulders) for about 8 or 9 years, but cut my hair in the spring of 2003 when I decided to join the local Fire Dept...BIG MISTAKE!! I HATED every second of that job. Its a long story why, but I HATED it. Also, the whole time I was forced to shave my face and buzz my hair. I dreamed of one day being able to grow long hair, or at least facial hair, again one day. In Jan of 2007, I had finally had it with the place and quit. I now work for a large Telecommunications company where I am able to have a beard and my hair has been growing out from a buzzcut for exactly 12 months. The back is almost shoulder length and the front comes down to just passed my ear lobes. Here is my problem: the other day I went to the local Great Clips. I wanted to have the sides of my hair buzzed off about half an inch above my ear and around the very botom of the hairline in the back (for example: many WWE wrestlers have this style such as Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Shawn Michaels, etc.). I THOUGHT it was an easy request. I even showed the lady a picture of exactly what I wanted (the pic I have posted is of wrestler J.D. Michaels...the exact pic I showed the lady and told her that I wanted done to my hair). The lady BUTCHERED the side of my head. She buzzed almost the entire side above my right ear in one swoop before I could stop her!! When my hair is hanging down, you cant see it. It isnt THAT noticable and Im sure Im panicking for nothing (I actually almost threw up right after this happened) but this part of my head is now A YEAR BEHIND the rest. What should I do? Should I cut some of the hair so it doesnt grow out so much further than the messed up part? ignore it and keep growing? when it is all grown out, I love the lok of my hair in a ponytail, I was hoping to sport one by the summer, but now my hair is a year behind schedule because of this!!! I panicked so much I bought "BIOTIN" hair vitamins that are supposed to help hair grow faster...do these work? Im panicking right now as I write this LOL I know this has been super long but I needed to talk to SOMEBODY about this since it has been bugging me so bad (my family and friends dont care about their hair at all, much less mine so I needed a sympathetic ear). Thanks All!!
It looks fine mate, look at RVD, he has an even more extreme undercut.
Hello Mathew...
I'm taking a break of studying textile fibers so I'm gonna give you my opinion =P
First of all, I don't know your aproach to long hair, so I don't know what are your goals and so on. My aproach to long hair is to hae it as healthy as possible, and that will be trying to mantain all the hair of your head on the same lenght, that means no buzzing the sides or whatever part of the head. Buzzing a zone of your scalp while letting another part long may look cool but it gets much harder to mantain the long hair. You'd have to deal with the buzzed hair growing again and getting tangles in the long hair, also you'd have to keep shavving the buzzed part to mantain the look, and you wouldn't know for how long your stylist would be making it nicely and not cutting or shaving more hair that there was before, or than you wanted. The same happens with bangs (fringes). My sister has butt lenght hair (classic lenght) and she had bangs. The hairdresser would always cut a little more of her hair into the bangs, so she was removing hair from the longer part. I think this would happen with the style you're looking for as well.
But still, if your aproach to long hair is this particular style, I say go for it, but you have to look for a very trustfull hairstylist to do it to you. Now that you are in this situation with one side shaved, and badly, I'd suggest that you'd let ig grow again and simply do nothing. You're still in a very early stage of the process of growing long hair, I'm sure you still can't tuck your bangs in your ponytail, so you need more time. Having this said, I'd suggest you to keep growing your hair long and when you reach the possibility to do a ponytail just look for a nice hairdresser who'll do exactly what you want. In that time he can take adantage of the part of your head that's been buzzed now but not buzz as much, and correct what this hairstylist did to your hair.
Just don't panick now... You have plenty of time to regrow the shaved part and you've learned your lesson with hairdresser ;) I wish you good luck and I hope I helped!
nm
Ah yes we get many stories about botched jobs done by evil
hair stylists. I know it is gut wrenching for you and I wont
inject too much humor in my reply. If anyone did that to me I
would go balistic. My only suggestion would be to let it all
grow and do a few trims down the road to even things up. Pick
your stylist carefully and good luck.
Kevin
Just don't make any snap decisions. Cutting more off takes minutes. Growing back more takes years.
Play with covering the butchered part. Perhaps there's a way to cover it with other hair or a bandana or hat. If you can find a way to last until it grows you might be happier.
That's a horror story, --- and not uncommon, expecially if you go to those chain haircut places. Once there were 3 co-workers of mine (female) who walked into Supercuts, all of them with COMPLETELY different hairstyles in their minds; but, they walked out of there all 3 of them looking exactly the SAME (and mad as hell)!!!
To protect yourself in the future, do a lot of research and asking other longhairs (men or women) if they have any stylist that they highly recommend. There are hair stylists who specialize in long hair... They tend to be in the big cities, and their prices are very high; but, they are WORTH IT!!!
As far as what to do about your current situation, as others have also stated below, just don't do anything impulsive. If you feel your hair is just too butchered-looking to tolerate even seeing it in the mirror, then find a highly reputable stylist who you can at least talk to about advise. I had this experience myself, when I impulsively cut off my waist-length hair back in Y2K. A close friend of mine (a woman with hip-length hair) recommended that I see her stylist for advise and a very slight trim (often called "a dusting"). She said he was willing to see me for advise at no charge, --- and then would proceed w/ the dusting, only if I felt comfortable going through w/ it. Although I balked at first, it ended up turning out to be the best thing I could have done for myself, --- because it psychologically "erased" the bad memory of the haircut that devastated me, and then enabled me to emotionally "move on" back to focussing on growing again.
Like you, I had pannic attacks, --- as well as insomnia --- after that Y2K cut. And I struggled w/ a lot of depression over it, because it had taken me 9 years to grow it that long; but, only minutes to cut it all off!!
We are all different, both in our hair on the outside, and what makes us tick on the inside! We can't literally TELL you what to do; you have to trust your gut enough to do what feels the most sensible under the circumstances. What I just narrated turned out to work well for me back in Y2K (and interestingly, that follow-up hair trim w/ the expensive guy was actually a very WONDERFUL experience, because he barely cut off 1/4 inch, --- felt like he was just cutting off air!!); but, you might end up feeling like NOT touching any scissors to it might be the better route in your case (until it gets long enough for you to try what you originally wanted in the first place)...
My personal opinion about undercuts, though, is that they are risky to begin with, --- although we do have a few regulars here who have that style. If you are 100% convinced that you want this look, then see if you can find out from another guy who wears an undercut where he goes in for a trim.
Hope these comments have helped!
- Ken in San Francisco
Well I'm sorry to hear your story and it can't be worse than going Supercuts and that is a no no!
Cheers,
John.B
let me start off by saying you are your hair are gorgeous :)
Ok,
as a girl, i would recommend you to keep leting it grow, and from time to time go have a lil trim done.
it will eventually even out.
anyways a a nice trim here and there helps ur hair grow a lil faster and keep healthy.
-Dee