Ooh, GUUUUURL! I’ve shed many tears over my hair, but by far the worst waterworks occurred after one particularly bad haircut in the summer between third and fourth grade.
I needed a haircut, badly, so my mom took me to the neighborhood “Asian salon” (That’s what we called it because everyone who worked there was Asian, and everyone who went there was Asian… I guess we weren’t very creative at the time when it came to naming things.) at a nearby shopping mall.
I was a quiet kid, a people pleaser, so I usually did what was told without protest, which is what I did that day, even though I had a feeling sitting in the chair that things were about to go very wrong.
Wait! — I’m getting head of myself. Let me start at the beginning…
When we walked into the salon that day, I expected to get a quick trim of my Dorothy Hamill hair, which I’d been rockin’ since kindergarden.
I sat down expecting business as usual, and I was okay with that. I figured I’d leave with my standard bowl cut that turned all the boys’ heads, LOL! Totally joking. I was an odd-looking kid, far from the “pretty girl” of our class, whose name was Betina. Betina had straight, beautiful brown hair so long that whenever she sat down, it fell just beneath her butt.
Anywho! Back to the salon…
There must have been some miscommunication somewhere along the way because the stylist kept cutting and cutting, and my hair kept getting shorter and shorter. AND SHORTER.
I started to freak out a little in the chair but was too afraid to say anything until it was way too late.
When it was finally over, my hair looked exactly like Ralph Macchio’s from The Karate Kid. The same center part, same wings over the ears — everything.
It was awful.
When my mom and the stylist asked if I liked it, all smiling with glee, all I could do was nod, “yes,” because I didn’t know what to say. I was in shock.
After we left the salon, my mom drove us to a Hallmark store to get some cards, and while we were there, I saw a display of heart-shaped pins with girl names on them. I started looking for my name when the lady behind the counter said really loudly, “I’m sorry, honey, but those pins are only for girls, not boys.”
Aaaaand that’s when I lost my sh*t.
I started sobbing like a crazed animal! There was slobber and snot everywhere. I think I even foamed at the mouth.
After about 10 minutes, I’d calmed down enough to function. My mom and the Hallmark lady must’ve felt really badly because I got one of the heart-shaped pins for my shirt.
Didn’t exactly make up for my Ralph Macchio hair…but it was a cute pin. 🙂
How about you? Have you ever cried over a bad haircut?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
BlushandBarbells says
August 21st, 2013 at 10:52 pmI cry over my hair on a daily basis…but yes, I had a traumatic at-home chop when I was in grade school. My mother thought my hair was looking scraggly and whipped out her sewing scissors and I was relentlessly mocked by my classmates for the rest of the year. I recently came across a photo of that hairdo and promptly ripped it to shreds!
Minsooky says
August 21st, 2013 at 11:55 pmI haven’t had a cry over it, but every time I cut my bangs I end up hating it and spending the next few months extremely camera shy and feeling down about it. I don’t know why I keep on thinking this time it’ll look good on me! I’m currently growing out some that I cut back in the Spring and if I don’t style it it looks like I have a mullet lol.
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Annie says
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:33 amI recall the same situation but I didn’t cry…it was the first salon my mom brought me when I was young..I wanted a good pixie haircut but the hairdresser somehow translated the picture I brought with me into a boy haircut…so I spent the rest of the year being asked if I would like to join the basketball team….(Girls’school..you know what I meant) 🙁
Gowthami says
August 22nd, 2013 at 2:54 amI haven’t cried for a bad hair-cut!! I just had step cut with larger side bangs and I love it!! 😛
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S. Drama&Makeup says
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:25 amI’ve cried way too many times over a bad haircut! These days I just leave my hair super long and avoid going to the hairdresser 😀 xx
hanna says
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:38 amI’ve never cried over a bad hair cut, but I’ve had plenty that were pretty bad.
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Kiss & Make-up says
August 22nd, 2013 at 5:41 amWhat on earth is that first hair cut?? 🙂 I would cry over that, haha. I cried over a hair cut twice I think. Once when I was still a kid and cut my long hair short. I started crying when I realized I could not wear it in a ponytail anymore. And then again a year or 5 ago when I cut my long hair in a Rihanna bob. Same problem with the ponytail, lol. I sense a theme…
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Danielle says
August 22nd, 2013 at 5:54 amI’m sure I have cried over a bad haircut, but I can think of more times where I have cried over a bad color or a color I was just unhappy with.
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Chris25 says
August 22nd, 2013 at 6:29 amI don’t think I ever had. I always get cuts that are just taking off length. I hardly ever do anything drastic with my mane. See, being boring has its perks! 😀
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Rachel P says
August 22nd, 2013 at 7:57 amI’ve definitely freaked out about haircuts before (more so with hair color than cuts, actually), but I don’t think I’ve ever actually cried. My haircuts have all been very intentional decisions, and I never got a really bad one as a kid. Even if I look back and think “girl, why would you try to rock that mohawk” or even “the canary blonde chin-length bob with blunt bangs should be left to editors-in-chief at magazines or maybe second graders” (yse, I’ve had those haircuts for real), I just remind myself that it was exactly what I wanted at the time and I enjoyed it while it lasted!
Maria J. says
August 22nd, 2013 at 8:33 amIt’s Very Unfortunate, but the hair stylist I’ve always used that past 2 times to cut my hair has failed this last time and I honestly did cry over this hair cut more than I cried about the other two she truly kind of cut my hair like that picture up there or kind of made me look like a soccer mom, which is bad on my behalf because I don’t have any children.
Vanessa says
August 22nd, 2013 at 9:52 amOh my gosh, yes. When I was about 6-7, my dad decided he could cut my bangs for me. I ended up with these little 3/4 inch sprout looking tufts of hair trying so hard to be bangs. Cried like a baby. A year later, my hair was down to my butt and my parents decided to let the hair dresser chop it off up to my shoulders. Cried for weeks.
When I was about 16, the lady cutting my hair was holding phone between her head and shoulder the entire time she was cutting my hair and ended up doing all my layers at an angle. My hair looked like this: /.
Hot mess hair cuts are not the business LOL.
Trisha says
August 22nd, 2013 at 10:57 amI’ve cried about a haircut only once. I was 15 and this was when “The Rachel” was super popular. My mistake was going to Great Clips for it. It looked TERRIBLE. And that’s why I’ve been cutting my own hair for the past 15 years. 😛
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Julia says
August 22nd, 2013 at 11:27 amOmg yes! Too many times. My mom made me cut off all my hair when I was in the 7th grade because I had died it blonde. Apparently we made a deal that once my roots showed I’d cut the blonde off (yeah right mom!). I’d be given boy change room keys at the Y or asked what’s your son’s name…it was painful and is the reason why I have a hard time doing anything but a trim.
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Kimmwc03 says
August 22nd, 2013 at 11:50 amYes, I’m sure I did when I had to get bangs to cover chicken pox scars and then it took forever for them to grow out and they just looked awkward everyday. Now I cry over my hair because it is no longer thick like it was when I was a kid/teen.
Katherine says
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:09 pmWhen I was 17, I desperately wanted to have a Style (with a capital S). I settled on some sort of post-The Rachel flicky layered thing, and the hairdresser spent the entire appointment telling me that I had to blow dry and style my hair every morning (never going to happen, especially when I had to be at school just after eight) and that I wasn’t allowed to tuck my hair behind my ears – all in between having an argument with another stylist. At the end, not only did it do nothing for my face, it was also about three inches shorter than I’d wanted it and about two inches shorter than it had been since I was six. I hated it and cried myself to sleep that night.
That was the last time that I tried to have a Style. I find that my wavy/manic hair pretty much does it’s own thing, and I’m okay with that. I’ve only cried over my hair one another time, again when they took too much off. I only went in for a trim, but they didn’t seem to be measuring in the same inches that I was! But when I was little, I once hid from my mum when she had a new hairstyle. It was the 80s and she had a perm. I hid in the conservatory and refused to come out. 😉
Amanda says
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:20 pmAs a mom to a baby girl, I hope I never do something misguided with her hair. When the time comes, I’ll be watching YouTube tutorials on french braids. Throughout my childhood, my mom insisted on cutting my bangs straight across, and she tried to “clean up” an already too-short bob, which left me with an awkward ducktail at the nape of my neck. I don’t care what mothers say: I *did* go to school for a fashion show, and hair is really important!
MN says
August 22nd, 2013 at 12:36 pmOMG, I had a bad haircut just a few weeks ago! I’ve had bad haircuts before; it is usually no biggie because it’s either I asked for it and it just didn’t suit my face. But this time, the stylist gave me uneven hair and a too short cut. I had a half mullet and one side has too many asymmetrical layers. How do you even fix that?!
Erika says
August 22nd, 2013 at 1:30 pmYour story made me laugh so hard but it must have been so awful at the time! I had a boys haircut when I was very little but I was too small to get really bothered when people thought I was a cute little boy.
Worst haircut I got was in my early teens when an unscrupulous hairdresser (i was on my own) convinced me to get a short bob with a fringe with my curly hair (which I had no idea how to blow straight at the time) and ended up with a poodle on my forehead. As I sat there in horror she carefully collected all my long, perfect, ringlet curls, held them to her head and asked her colleague ‘wouldn’t these make great hair extension?’
lara says
August 22nd, 2013 at 3:25 pmIn February of this year my stylist of 4 years must have been distracted. She cut my hair really short in the back and at least 4 inches above my shoulders… it was supposed to be right at my shoulders all the way around. It was poufy sticking out in the back and shorter than boy hair in the back. I guess I was lucky making it to 31 before crying over a haircut!
Kristy says
August 22nd, 2013 at 4:29 pmOh dear, I remember going in with a pic of Olivia Newton John, circa “Let’s Get Physical”, and coming out with the Ralph Macchio. I don’t think I cried though. I was just pissed!
Chelsea says
August 22nd, 2013 at 5:29 pmI don’t think so! I had a short pageboy/bob for a while that looks bad looking back upon it, but it wasn’t that bad.
Plus I’ve had pretty much variations of the same haircut since I was 13.
Katherine M says
August 22nd, 2013 at 9:25 pmI never had anything so bad that I cried over it. I did have a stylist that would incorporate her own image more than what I had wanted, so I’d go in for a trim, and leave with 5 inches off. When I donated my hair, I wanted it a certain length and I ended up having close to 2 feet off total with the braid that was cut off and the hair that she cut off to style it after the ponytail chop. It was hard to style but my hair luckily grows fast, so within a couple of months it was back to a much more manageable length. I have a great stylist now (though I haven’t seen her since April) and she always does an amazing job on my hair. You know it’s a good cut when it grows out nicely, too. I was lucky, though, that my parents never made me get a boy cut as a kid. When you are growing up and trying to fit in, that kind of stuff IS really traumatic for a kid or teen.
Barbara says
August 23rd, 2013 at 9:09 amMy mother cut my long hair when I was in the 4th grade. She couldn’t get it even and kept cutting off more and more till it really short. I was resigned to it till my dad came home from work and asked “What the he** did you do to her ?” and I started bawling my eyes out!
I actually like Ralph Macchio’s hair. On him.
Sunny says
August 25th, 2013 at 7:48 amOh God, I cried over a bad hair cut countless times. Right now I am still trying to rescue my bleach processed hair (I mean who uses bleach in hair salons these days?! Mine did!) and trying to grow a bad style.
Vanessa says
September 1st, 2013 at 12:58 pmI don’t think I’ve ever cried from hair, but I’ve gotten frustrated with cuts.
When I was a kid, I had short hair and sometimes girls would scream when I went into the restroom. Whatever. People need to get over it. It’s not like my gender magically makes my hair grow long, it’s a societal thing.
Chris says
June 5th, 2014 at 8:40 amMany times I have cried over a haircut. I don’t understand why, when you show a “stylist” a picture, you still don’t get the right cut or, if it won’t work, tell me that. I told a stylist one time that I wanted loose, wavy curls, and I ended up with something that made me look like a flapper from the roaring 20s, with my hair shorter than I wanted and the curls very tight and close to my head. This was an upscale, very expensive salon. Needless to say I cried all the way home and had to work very hard to salvage my hair. Needless to say, I never went back. I was in my 50s at the time. I still haven’t learned to accept incompetence on the part of people who call themselves “stylists” (just a fancy name for a hairdresser).
renee says
May 12th, 2020 at 7:29 amI just found your post. I’m 51 and have been crying over a chop job since December 10th, hours before my company’s swanky Holiday Party. Had lovely shoulder length that the stylist cut into and when I said stop it’s too short, he cut a wedge shape out of one side. He was beyond his time to cut hair, I think he was a barber NOT a stylist and really he seemed to have forgotten what he was doing while he was cutting my hair.