I have to be one of the most obsessive people on the planet whether it’s concerning home design, fashion, organisation, functionality, or hair. Especially hair. And since I mentioned hair I might as well go on a rant.
I have spent the last 2 or 3 years growing my hair. I get a slight trim every two months or so but overall the growth has steadily been getting longer. Back at the end of July I finally decided to try another Keratin treatment to straighten out a lot of the curl and kink.
I did this in September 2017 and was very happy with it for months. For 72 hours you can’t get your hair wet and it is outrageously straight during that time. Then after an initial rinse it curls again but they’re softer and looser and my hair becomes more wavy. After the 2017 session I would dry my hair wearing a beanie, which took about 6 hours, and then my hair was very much to my liking. Sometimes it would straighten out considerably just from sleeping on it.
Something was different after this recent treatment. My hair is a lot longer now than it was in 2017. It was absurdly long during the 72 hours before I could rinse it. I decided that I would probably be happier if it was closer to the length it was two years ago.
Then I rinsed it. I have not been happy. What changed?
Sometimes it behaves exactly like it did before the Keratin treatment which of course causes me to wonder why I wasted the money. The hair is longer but I can’t attribute that to the cause. Women with even longer hair get the treatment and maintain perfectly straight hair with some effort I’m sure.
My hunch is a combo of things are the issue: length, products, and techniques. I’m using a completely different line of hair products now. I did try the flat iron — something I do not believe I was doing two years ago because I always feel like I’m damaging my hair, so I’m very reluctant to do it. But in a fit of desperation this time, I tried it and the results were horrendous. My hair looked dry, crispy and was not hanging straight at all. It was flaring out to the sides which gave me pyramid hair. I had to immediately wet it and go back to a natural curly look.
Since then I have been trying to decide the next steps. Do I cut it? Do I just let it hang curly and forget the $275 I spent trying to make it straighter?
These are difficult questions. The shorter I go the more insistent I am on straighter hair. In my opinion some of the worst haircuts I have ever had were short hair. I don’t mind shorter sides and in the back but I really need length on top because I like versatility. Apparently I never made this clear to my stylist a few years ago when I was going shorter because she cut it short all over. The result was rather Julius Ceasaresque which is almost as hideous as the Mark Zuckerberg giving testimony before the US senate-look. I cannot go there. On the other hand, whatever I have ever said to a stylist about the look I want makes me wonder if they go momentarily deaf as soon as my mouth starts moving.
My curl pattern in the back is tight and hard to manage. On the top and sides it will often straighten effortlessly depending on products I’m using and weather. So there’s that problem: it’s like having two entirely different hair types on one head.
Leaving it long and curly is an option. As long as it just hangs it’s fine. Unfortunately there are issues. Sometimes it hangs but there are incredibly frizzy bits. Sometimes it looks clumpy and frizzy. And in the back it simply looks like an unruly wad of untameable shit.
Oh, I forgot to mention I’m that guy who has no patience for spending more than 5 minutes getting his hair right. The beanie drying method takes 6 hours but I’m not actually doing anything so that’s better than spending 20 minutes with a flat iron, blow dryer, or brush, in some utterly futile attempt to control this mane.
I am very picky about my hair and i’m not sure what the words are that I should use to describe how I want my hair to look. Smooth. Compact. Neat. I’m not sure. I like messy, I like bed hair, I like unruly, but it has to be controlled. There can be no roundness to my hair. No pyramid looks. No flaring. No clumps. No wiry frizz. And nothing that looks like I glued a mass of Spaghetti-Os on my head.
On my computer is a photo album labelled “Hair.” As you might guess, it contains many photos of hair I like as well as hair I detest. How hard can it be to get my hair looking even remotely like the group of photos I like as opposed to the group I classify as “NO” and I even added text to those photos with a blunt “NO” to make it very clear.
I’ve probably looked at 50,000 photos of guys. Shit, that’s enough to turn a man gay. One thing is constant about these photos I have saved — the guys are about 16 years old on average. Perhaps that’s part of my problem. Am I miserable because I can’t get my hair to look like them or am I miserable because I won’t look like them even if I do succeed with my hair?
Feeling somewhat embarrassed for failing to take this into consideration, I have been searching “hairstyles for older men,” “hairstyles for older men with long hair.” etc.
Fuck that shit. I’ve never been so disgusted in my life.
One thing is certain. I am not looking for a current trendy haircut. I’ve searched those as well. “50 Best Men’s Haircuts for 2019 (or 2018, or 2017)..it doesn’t matter. It is so rare if I see one I like. I’m not shaving the sides of my head and piling up this shit that’s left on top of my head like some tower. I’m not having anything carved or etched into the short hairs behind or over my ears. And I’m not growing a goddamn hipster beard that collects little bits of avocado toast.
This is bullshit. I am so pissed.
I feel like I am no closer to a decision about length — short or long — than I was a week ago. And I have an appointment with my stylist in six days. I’m dragging out all kinds of products and I’ll try various combinations of things between now and the appointment day in the quest for some hair revelation.
Whatever I decide, I probably need to do this in small steps. I can always go back and get more cut. It’s not so easy to add it back once I go too far. The conversation with my stylist is sure to be an interesting one. When we start talking about how much to cut, I will need to be clear, such as, “are you talking about cutting 3 straight inches or 3 curly inches?” It’s important to be clear and specific.
I’ll try to make this as easy and straightforward as possible. I will go in armed with a dozen or so pictures of male models, none of them over the age of 18, who all have absolutely perfect hair, and perfect facial construction, and perfect skin, perfect pouty lips, gorgeous teeth and without a single blemish anywhere.
“Make me look like one of these. I don’t care which one.”
How fucking hard can that be if she has 12 or 15 to choose from?
How fucking hard can that be if she has 12 or 15 to choose from?
