So my hair is just not working for me. I used to have short hair that I mostly wore toussled. Then I was in a wedding in a conservative part of Ohio so I started growing it out. When I grew it out, it was magically curly. I have never had curly hair before. Not really curly, but will make swirls and spirials with little encouragement. If I want straight, I have to straighten. Right now it is collar length when curly and shoulder length when straight. Since I work in a plant, I wear a hairnet 10 hours a day 5 days a week. The hair gets ponytailed into supression to prevent escape from the hairnet. So now I have broken hair all around my hairline. I don’t like it. I wanna chop it, but not short and spiky again. What do I do? What do I do?
Are you male or female? And do you have any lifestyle allegiances that need to be declared or hidden?
Female, and short hair doesn’t go over well when I travel to rural Ohio where I have friends and family. The friends and family are mostly OK with it, but female+short hair=evil lesbian to the masses.
How YOU doin’? 
Seriously, it sounds like you a) look hot with short hair and b) like it, so why not go with what works for you? You could do it real short around the bottom and sides (Midwest be damned) and leave it longer to curl naturally and tousle up top, kinda like Rachel Ward ('cept maybe a little less '80’s). Then you could just run some water/product through it before you leave work = instant hotness.
Good luck with it! (pic would help with input, btw.)
Yeah, it sounds like you prefer it shorter – and a nice wavy/curly, tousled style can be cute and not too butch. I’m not seeing a problem here.
:smack: I always thought you were a guy! Sorry.
Wow, are you my twin??!! I’m going thru the same thing right now. My hair used to be short and spikey and I really liked it that way, but decided that after 20 years with the same hairstyle it was time for a change.
About 2 years ago decided to let it grow, and it was not easy. I had to really fight the urge to chop it every other week. Somehow I made it thru the transition and now it’s about mid-neck length, which is LONG for me. My hair is super thick and curly; it looks HORRIBLE if I straighten it because is just looks like a hair helmet. My dilemma is I CANNOT stand to have hair in my face so I am always pulling it back in a hairband, which on some days makes me look like Bozo the Clown. :eek:
So I’m in the same boat as you; I’m trying to figure out what kind of style will work with this hair, and I don’t want something that I have to fuss with every morning with curling irons and multiple hair products. It’s all I can do some days to avoid chopping the whole thing off and going spiky again!!
I just need to bite the bullet and get to a hair stylist, but I’m afraid they will either chop it too much or decide they want to straighen it or something. I have an abnormal fear of hair stylists…!!!
This is why I don’t do really short anymore. Online, totally understandable, in person, totally embarassing. Not so much that I care if people think I’m a dude, but then they get embarassed and tell me more embarassing stories about how someone once mistook their potbelly for being pregnant, which is even more embarassing for them and for me.
Wow, I’ve never been hit on on the MB before ::sniff::
Seriously, I was considering something like that without the short hair in the back.
I used to have something like this
But I am thinking about something more like this
It should be noted that I am not nearly as hot as Ashley Judd, but I do seem to have similar hair as you can see here in this self portrait of me on the tailgate of my car. The stocking cap covers the fact that my hair was much shorter then.
The position of twin has already been claimed by my IRL twin, but I’ll add you to the list of people who are willing to step in should she fall behind on her duties.
I was warned by the woman who first cut my hair short that once I cut it all off, I would never have long hair again, and she was right.
Glad to oblige 
…
…even if you do look a lot like a cornfield… 
I’m in the same boat… During the summer months, I let it all grow out so I can put my hair up. But come fall, I get it chopped off. It’s just so much easier to maintain. Not to mention the fact that my face is a little too round for ponytails. At any rate, I wouldn’t get bummed or even care about what the rednecks think about gals with short hair. Both of those Ashley Judd pics show very feminine and stylish hair. Go for it!
It’s all in the shadow!
Just be grateful you’re not a guy.
We have to make decisions about beards and moustaches as well. :eek:
Someone ‘gets’ it!
And then there is the beard net…
Try the extremes. Bald or unrestrained growth.
I didn’t know anybody thought short hair on a woman meant you are a lesbian. How incredibly small-minded, since I’m sure they don’t think being a lesbian is an okay thing. People never cease to amaze me.
No, no, not short hair. SHORT hair. Like, “#3 clippers on the top, please” short. Sometimes this gets modified into a short stylish-like cut.
The reason some of us think that is that more often than chance, it’s TRUE. It’s one of the ways to signal “I’m not straight” to other people in whom you might be interested, without the obviousness of wearing a shirt that reads “Yes! I date women!” or the expense of taking out a billboard. If you happen to like having long hair and dresses, then you’ll find another way to signal it to the women whose attention you’re seeking-- or take out a billboard. (I can never figure out the difference between a femme lesbian and a straight woman, so I really have no idea what they do.)
I think the real small-mindedness is that of the surrounding society, which made it necessary for people who were different to come up with tiny, subtle (or less subtle) markers of difference, rather than risk announcing themselves to the non-accepting majority. I hope that’s changing, these days.
Depending on the context, it can be a natural assumption. I’ve had very (as in practically crew-cut) hair at times, and I’m a painting contractor. Just being in a “male” profession triggers the dyke stereotype, actually. Add very short hair and many people just assume; it doesn’t mean they disapprove.
I never cared. I’m straight and think it’s funny.
BTW, gay people make the same assumptions. I’ve been flirted with by other women, which I find very flattering!
At one point, I had an four person, all-woman crew (I didn’t go out to hire women specifically, it just worked out that way.) All four were lesbians and I was the token straight chick. And, only one had short hair.
To the OP, short doesn’t have to be BDH. (Basic Dyke Hair. Think Halle Berry. Not quite short enough to be spiky, and a little longer in back and around the ears.
And anyway, I don’t think you need to give a shit if some people think it looks dyke-y.
I like the cornfield. 
The whole lesbian hairstyle thing was only the motive for originally growing it out, which I did to avoid a socially awkward situation for my friend when I was in her wedding. I figured since I started growing it out, I’d try to finish. Over a year later, I am admitting defeat, moslty because my hair is not hairnet compatable. My only motive for not going back to the short (#4 blade, please) hair is that I’ve been there and done that, for almost a decade. I really don’t care if people make assumptions about my sexual orientation based on my appearance, and I like to mess with their heads when they do.
Oh…yeah, the crew cut thing. I have short hair, but it’s not that short. I see. I thought she meant anything short was somehow suspect.