Crisis Hair

September 5, 2023

I saw a new hairdresser today. Or…new to me anyway. I think she’s been doing hair for a few years, but today she touched these locks of mine for the first time. Momentous, I know. Most women (and some men, I’m sure) can relate to the stress of trying out a new hairdresser. Your hair is such a big part of your look and trusting someone to wave scissors around back there can be difficult. About 2 years ago (Friday September 3, 2021 to be exact) I walked into the Eclips salon in South Riding and had my very first appointment with Elle. I later learned that Elle’s real name was Elizabeth (Lizzie, Liz) but the salon called her “Elle” in their online booking system to avoid confusion with all of the other Elizabeths at the salon. I sat down in her chair and looked at myself in the mirror. The person I saw in the reflection was someone who had been up all night crying, had struggled through a half-day at work, and then took the afternoon off for a last minute appointment.

When I had scheduled the appointment the day before, I was planning on asking Elle/Liz for a trim and maybe a root touchup of the single-process brown color I used to hide all three of my gray hairs. But the evening before I met Liz, I had spent all afternoon cooking and baking for a date I had with my then boyfriend. We had an amazing dinner, some drinks, dessert, and one big fight at the end of the night. I cried and asked him to stay the night and he said no and left. I woke up the next morning knowing for sure that it was over. When I sat down in Liz’s chair I asked her to cut six inches off of my hair and dye it as dark as it would go…so much for that trim and touchup. Crisis hair.

Chopping off all of your hair is such an exciting mistake. The hairdresser cuts it all off and fluffs and shines it until you look like Emma Watson, post-Harry-Potter. They use the fancy hair products that make you smell way nicer than your normal self. You’re surrounded by other women who are getting their heads massaged and shampooed in the sink. Everyone is talking about life – kids, men, men with kids. You know, gossip. The best kind of gossip – stories about people you’ll never meet who made bad decisions or got screwed over. You treat your stylist like your own personal therapist, telling her things you wouldn’t even tell a friend or your own sister. The scissors glide across your hair and as the excess falls to the floor, your head literally feels lighter. Cooler. Bouncy. You feel bouncy. You’ve gotten all of your pain off of your chest and all of the dead-split-ends off of your head. The grays are gone. You look at yourself in the mirror and see change. And the change makes you feel like other parts of your life could also change and maybe feel as painless and intentional as a haircut.

Unfortunately, you get home, and realize that Liz isn’t in your bathroom to help you style the damn bob every morning. You also learn that you can’t hide a bad hair day with a ponytail or a messy bun, and that the slightest change in humidity or the way you sleep or Mercury going in and out of retrograde can alter your hair’s behavior. Your morning routine becomes a struggle and you curse yourself for subjecting your hair straightener to this much strain. What did that Chi do to deserve this?

Change is a real pain in the ass. We love it and hate it. It feels so good when you buy those new sheets and comforter on sale at Target and shake up the look of your entire bedroom. That is, until you realize the new sheets are itchy and the comforter clashes with the dog (Seriously, an apricot colored dog on a rose colored bedspread? Puke.) That brand new car is a real treat until the first monthly payment hits your account and you also realize that you’re still as messy as ever and your new car looks disgusting just like your old one did in record time. We all come back from the dentist with shiny clean teeth, plaque-free and we tell ourselves that this time will be different. This time we will floss every day and the dental hygienist will be sooooo impressed with our healthy gums. Yeah. Right. You get your stupid Ipsy glam bag for August and dare to try the new night cream they sent you. The next day, your face looks like you spent the evening running away from the Children of the Corn. Change is really difficult, and when you can pull it off, it can still feel like a horrible mistake.

Do you remember the part in “Remember the Titans” where the coach makes Sunshine cut his hair? If not, I guess you don’t remember the Titans after all…heh heh heh. Anyway, Sunshine sits in front of the mirror in the locker room, rubbing his fingers through his soccer-mom hair and Petey Jones (the running back, THE running back, y’all) says “Hey now, all that rubbin’ ain’t gonna make them golden locks grow back no faster.” Isn’t that the truth? I’ve never had a crisis haircut that I didn’t regret within just a few days, but at that point, it’s done. All I can do is wait for it to grow back. I wake up and use that straightener until it quacks from distress (seriously, a worn out Chi sounds just like a duck with a hernia) and days go by, and hair grows back little by little. The crisis passes and the only evidence that it ever happened is…well, 8 million pictures on social media, including a few in the pages of this blog. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t waste a little time running my fingers through it, wishing I were a Kardashian who could afford to have a different hairstyle every day. Shut up, Petey Jones – I know dwelling doesn’t help, but I can’t help dwelling.

I was in so much pain as I sat in Liz’s chair for the first time, but it’s one of my favorite memories. I was desperate for a friend that day, and the universe delivered one. I needed someone to listen to me and be on my side and she was there. I needed a change, I needed to walk out of that salon feeling lighter and different and she gave me that. She catalyzed the season of change that I was about to endure. That night, I went home and got dumped by someone I loved and thus began a really long journey of trying to feel like myself again – trying to get back to some equilibrium…trying to move on…trying to get my hair to be long enough to put in a damn ponytail.

Two years have passed and a lot has changed. Liz has taken me from dark brown to blonde and every shade in between. She’s fluffed my hair and my ego at the same time, calling me beautiful and telling me I’m hilarious. She listens, she hugs me when I leave. I’m not saying correlation equals causation, but I’ve had 4 GREAT (not good, but great) dates in the two years since I’ve been single, and they all happened on days Liz did my hair. The guys obviously didn’t stick around for very long, but hey, she’s a hair stylist, not a magician. And now, she’s moving far far away from me. I’m going to miss my friend. I’m going to miss sitting in her chair. I’m going to miss the controlled change that she has helped me achieve when control was the one thing I felt I could never have. I’m going to miss her encouragement and her light. But I can’t help but think that there are some women in Texas who are about to come to her for their own crisis haircuts and that she will be there for them in their time of need. And for me, I’ll be over here begrudgingly accepting change once again. Starting with my new hairdresser.