When your hair goals are "red carpet", but you walk out of a salon looking like a nun in a 1940s film noir.

Original Post Date: 09.23.2020. Revised: 07.19.2025

The thing about learning a lesson—large or small—is that you then have to remember it.

I had forgotten one particular tiny lesson, or maybe time fuzzied it up. (You know your memory’s playing footsies with you when you hear yourself say, “Oh, it wasn’t that bad… was it?”) At any rate, I threw caution to the wind and invited fate to dance with me one more time.

It just so happens that I have a love/hate relationship with my hair. I love my natural curls—but they demand maintenance. And that’s the part I don’t like. I don’t love my hair enough to wrestle with curling irons, rods, roller brushes, dryers, and styling cream every morning.

What I want is a no-maintenance option. I want to walk out of the shower and let the wind blow dry my hair into a perfect coiffure, just like when you go through a car wash, then barrel down the road and let the wind blow away the soap bubbles still clinging to the side of your car.

My Honda appreciates that. My hair does not. It retaliates by looking like it was styled by an out of control KitchenAid™ mixer.

And it doesn’t help that I have yet to find a hairdresser who can deliver the cut I’m looking for. After nearly a dozen stylists in five years, I’m pretty sure I’m the problem.

“Bring in a picture,” they tell me.

So, I do. And then I say, “Like this, except more layers, not those bangs, and definitely not that color.”

To which they stare at me for a moment, and SLOWLY reply, “…So… not this, then?”

Ah. Yes. I see the issue.

Then comes the dreaded question: “Well, what would you like me to do with your hair?”

What I want to say is this: “Style it like Helen Mirren’s platinum-white curls, add a little retro Sophia Loren volume, throw in some Jane Fonda bangs, and finish it off with Audrey Hepburn elegance.”

What I actually end of saying is this: “Do whatever you want.”

And so, I walk out with a chip on my shoulder (because the stylist didn’t read my mind) and a haircut I dislike (because apparently, I can’t read my mind either).

I could blame my current shaggy look on the haunting possibility that one more haircut might push me over the edge from human to hypoallergenic companion animal, but the truth is, I don’t really know what I want—just that I’d prefer not to look like Granny Clampett or pay top dollar for guaranteed disappointment.

So, this past week, I ditched my usual stylist and headed to a local walk-in salon. My logic? I could just as easily hate a $20 haircut as I could one that cost six times as much.

Let’s just say… mistakes were made.

What I can tell you is that I now sport a haircut that has nothing in common with Helen, Sophia, Jane, or Audrey. Instead, I look like a novice in a melodramatic 1940s black-and-white movie—the kind where the guy falls in love with a woman who’s already married to Jesus. He watches as she walks through the medieval convent walls into the church whose doors close dramatically behind her while he, broken hearted, disappears into the foggy distance.

Back in this realm, I had promised myself: no more walk-in-have-a-seat-we’ll-be-right-with-you haircuts.I should’ve remembered.

And yet there I was, standing in my bathroom, tugging at the ends of what little hair remained, as if I could coax it to grow back faster.

Which brings me to this: If you’re going to ask fate to dance, make sure you lead.

(The essay below, written a good while back, inspired the essay above.)

Spring/Summer 2012

A few years ago, I stopped for a trim at one of those walk-right-in hair salons.

On my way home, I pulled into a fast-food drive-thru I frequent far too often. They know me there. Eddie, who works second shift, has nicknamed me “Ms. B.” He says it’s because I’m always buzzing around, and I choose to believe he’s telling the truth.

“Hey Ms. B, pull up,” he said through the speaker. He recognized my car and punched in my usual order.

When I got to the window, he reached for my payment… then paused.

“Ms. B… who did you let fuss with your hair?”

“Is it as bad as I think?” I asked.

“No, you’re cool,” he said, handing me the receipt.

Then he leaned out the window and whispered: “You’re gonna get that fixed, right?”

Have you ever had a haircut so bad you had to pretend it was “intentional”? What did you learn from it—or better yet, how did you fix it?

“Sister Golden Hair” — written by Gerry Beckley, recorded by America, © 1975, published by WB Music Corp.