Getting a Haircut with my Eyes Closed: Meditations on Hair, Identity, and Liberation

originally published by Limeaid (now defunct)

On the Sunday before the start of my junior year of college, I made what could have been a devastating hair blunder.

 

At 7 p.m. that night, I sat down in the chair of a local salon with walk-in availability. As the hairstylist fastened the smock around my neck, I told her that I was going to keep my eyes closed. She could do anything she wanted to my hair, anything from a shaping to bangs to any length below my chin – absolutely anything, and to not tell me what she was doing until it was over.

 

The hairstylist hesitated. She agreed, but then, with a spiral of my hair between her fingers, opened her mouth to suggest something. I shook my head. She smiled. Then she went to work.

 

And, somehow, it was the absolute best haircut I’ve ever had in my entire life. 

 

I knew the risk of this decision. I’ve had more hair disasters than most.

 

There was, of course, the time when I bleached my hair a white-platinum blonde and watched in horror as it fell out in cotton-ball handfuls just days later, my beautiful curls rendered Q-tip brittle. Or when I went stark firetruck red at the start of the pandemic, only to have it lighten up to a pale carrot when it was too unsafe to reenter a salon. Or even when on a whim, feeling emotionally itchy during a depressive episode as a teenager, I got a haircut from a professional who wasn’t familiar with curls. It ended up with the texture of a puffy dark wedge, and yes, I looked like a small guido boy.

 

That’s to say, I haven’t had much luck. 

 

Like many women, my hair has been a staple of my identity my entire adolescent and adult life. Around middle school, as puberty hit, my thick, straight hair began to wave and layer. I didn’t know what to do with it. It was frizzing like it never had before, and at 12, I was still chewing around a “not like other girls” complex. 

 

What was odd about this particular “I’m different” era was that I felt that any sort of self-care or fixation on my appearance was overly feminine and, apparently, weak.

 

The first time I recall tying my identity to my hair was at this age, flat-out refusing to cut my increasingly bushy hair. My mother would beg, saying that if I wasn’t going to do it for myself, do it for her, because honest-to-God it was starting to look like I was being neglected at home.

 

I remember shouting at her, in tears, that my hair was the only thing that could represent me. I couldn’t make friends, I hated my body so I couldn’t find a proper sense of style, I was newly disabled and still processing those consequences, and my self-worth was fixated on my academic success. Clutching at the mats in my hair, I cried, “This is all I have.”

 

Eventually, of course, I cut my hair. I had to. You couldn’t get a brush through it. I started training the curls with hair products, but I wasn’t satisfied. Starting in high school, I blew through every hair color in the book, waiting for a color or cut that would make me look in the mirror the way I felt in my head. Each time I went through a funk, I would brew for weeks and then finally take the plunge and get whatever cut I thought would sync myself up.

 

I’d get the new haircut-high for a day, and then by day two I’d be tugging at the ends or squinting at the roots, dissatisfied once more. I noticed this pattern about a year ago and made the decision to grow my hair out long and natural. If I want to look how I feel, then the first place to start should be letting my hair grow the cut and color it wants to and nourishing the texture after years of color damage.

 

Yet, despite my hair looking lusher than it had, I wasn’t happy. I wouldn’t let myself even consider brewing on a cut or color — for years, all I had done was psychoanalyze and deliberate over haircuts, and the whole point of this period was to grow into myself. I refused to encourage it.

 

Then, the day before the first day of school this semester, something snapped. Perhaps I was a little stir-crazy, or my extroverted side hadn’t had enough social interaction. The itch was unbearable, but I didn’t know what I wanted. Half of my head shouted it was time for a bob, or bangs, but the logical side cooled down and said, “Maybe just a trim.”

 

I couldn’t decide what I wanted, and I didn’t have time to think about it. It was just me, an impulsive woman, being properly myself for the first time.

 

There was some serendipity to my hairstylist too. She was new, only having been doing this since the start of the pandemic, and after some initial apprehension, was incredibly excited. She made me realize it’s not just me that’s incredibly neurotic about my hair, always looking for exactly what would make me feel perfect. On the other side of the scissors, hairstylists aren’t allowed much freedom in order to give us what we feel we need. With my request, she was permitted to explore whatever she’d personally been itching to experiment without any judgment or concern.

 

I think part of the alignment was that I was freed by releasing control, and my hairstylist was free to explore her creativity. The only guidelines I gave her were “feminine” and “retro,” and I ended up with the most flourishing, 70’s style shag. 

 

That’s really what it’s about – freedom. For years, I was looking for some part of my appearance to allow me to act and feel like myself, without realizing that the moment I start acting like myself and relaxing into the life I have grown for myself, I’d be able to look in the mirror and smile. The best confidence comes from feeling completely and absolutely free, and relinquishing control over my hair was the proper offering to accomplish that state of grace.

 

I haven’t felt so much like myself in a very long time. In a few more months, when I inevitably get that itch again, I know exactly what I’m going to do — book an appointment, get in that seat and close my eyes.