My hair has always been a bit tricky to manage but having children has pretty much finished it off. It’s very fine and set atop a rather high forehead; then the rather dull natural brown shade has been highlighted blonde for as long as I can remember. I’ve always felt a bit beaten down at hairdressers as occasionally go in feeling a bit daring and asking for something a bit different but my suggestions get talked down and I revert to the safe requests of ‘some layers at the back to thicken it up’ and a ‘bit of a soft fringe’ which I then furiously pull back like a badly fitted curtain as soon as I’m out of the salon.
It was just about passable until recent years when I had two children (now aged 4 and 9 months). The cycle goes like this: hair thickens up while pregnant, baby pops out and hair gets even thicker and looks amazing and you start convincing yourself that it’s going to be like this for good. Then when your baby is around four months old, BOOM! Hair suddenly falls out like like crazy, leaving a few sad wisps of hair and a lovely scalp shining through. Of course, this isn’t the pattern for everyone, but it is common and it’s happened in exactly the same way each time I had a baby. I still couldn’t believe it when it happened the second time though. How can lovely, thick hair which looks so good just bugger off like that? Damn you, hormones.
As soon as my hair fell out this time around, I booked an appointment to get it cut and coloured but it was kind of a damage limitation exercise as there wasn’t much that could be done with what was left, and I was talked out of any crazy ideas. So, more highlights, some layers to thicken it and a bit of a fringe. I’m not smiling in that photo below!
Fast forward to this week, and I now have a lot of tufty regrowth which is a couple of inches long, the blonde highlights look very out of place on my otherwise quite dark hair and there’s a nice chunk of grey at the front. I’d stopped looking in the mirror or even brushing it as it just looked so awful but then with job interviews looming I realised I needed to take action.
I booked an appointment at a different hairdressers in the hope that I wouldn’t be restricted by the history of my hair. When I was asked what I wanted, I said to look like a pixie, and pointed out that whatever they did, it wasn’t going to look any worse than its current state. And so the colourist and stylist set to work.
The first stage was an all-over reddish colour to cover up the grey and patchy highlights.
And then after a wash and rinse, the hair started to come off…
And then a new, short-haired me appeared in front of the mirror.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t put any makeup on in the morning so I looked a bit bare faced so once home I rummaged through my long-forgotten makeup bag and drew on a face. As you can see, my new hair just kind of moves around into different styles and the fringe is very short as it’s been cut back to the regrowth length.
I don’t know if I’ll keep it short forever, but it’s perfect for now as it looks healthier and it’s kicked me out of my style rut. Best bit was when I walked out of the salon, a neighbour walked past and looked straight through me, and the new me laughed to herself.
I used to shoot blue lizards 
February 18, 2017 at 4:02 pm
Ooh I love it – I think the darker colour really suits you! Very brave!
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March 30, 2017 at 8:52 pm
Makes you look younger! Brave but worth it : ) look fab
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