The Standing Hair Cut

I felt a wee bit foolish standing in the middle of the salon while the stylist trimmed away a year's growth. When your hair falls past the barber chair's back, however, there's few other options. It didn't help that stylist was rather diminutive herself...

I had forgotten something very important in the year since my last. Since most stylists don't deal with hair past Bra Strap Length (usually just shoulder length), they have to be taught that hair past 12" needs to be combed in sections from the bottom up. I should have detangled it myself, but I didn't want to be rude. Besides, it was done before I thought to say something.

I mentioned I was still growing out my hair, but I wanted to get rid of the damaged ends. She took off a bit less than I had expected, but I had still hoped more could be salvaged. Let this be a lesson to all of you trying to grow out colour damaged hair... if it looks slightly damaged at shoulder length, you can be sure it'll be dry, frazzled, split and unmanageable at waist length.

Cut it off before you try to grow it out!

I'm pleased with the overall shape, and hope that's the last of the damaged hair. If I ever consider colouring my hair again, please remind me that my hair only grows about 6" per year. At the moment, it'll take over 4 years to grow out crown damage.




I guess I'm back to where I started last winter... At least I'll know how long I can expect it to be by this time next year ;)

1 Year No Trim Challenge -- Success!

Last March, in an attempt to figure out how to care for my growing hair, I found the Long Hair Community forums. In addition to extremely helpful advice, anecdotes and all-round lovely people, users posted "challenges" for others to participate in. I signed up for a number, including the "No picking" challenge (which I failed miserably), the "WO for a Month" challenge (which I stuck with for 3 months, and then found out that spraying polyurethane is rather detrimental without the aid of cleansers), and the "No Trim for a Year" challenge.

My last trim was at a small hair salon in Bayshore on Jan 29/07. I documented my hair length on April 25/07, and went a full year without a cut.



As you can see, my hair is now officially past waist length, however, I've discovered that I still have some damage left over from the last time I dyed my hair (semi-permanent drugstore varieties). The ends have developed hundreds of splits over the past year, prompting many search and destroy missions.

I've been itching to chop the dried bits off -- I'm heading back to the salon. The sad part is I'll probably have to lose the 6 inches I've gained over the past year :(

I guess we'll see in a few hours...