I went into a mall salon my mom recommended. I told the stylist, “I shampoo my hair. I condition my hair. I comb my hair. Then, I leave my hair the fuck alone. I would like a clean bob about two inches lower than chin level, no layers. No product, please. No fancy styling.”
What did I get? A soccer mom from hell, layers all over, two inch maximum length nightmare. She used three different products in it and spent half an hour blowing it dry and then curling it. It was helmet hair. It was BAD helmet hair. It was sixty year old clueless lady BAD helmet hair. I nearly cried when I saw it.
My mom thought it was cute. I no longer trust her opinion on hair stylists. Took me a year to grow my hair back out. I still don’t think I’ve recovered from the trauma.
Lord. Back in the 80’s when a “sprial perm” was all the rage, I went to the salon with past mid back length, bone straight, perfectly conditioned hair and wanted one. In my defense I was young and had maybe had 1 perm prior to this, so I didn’t really know what they were supposed to do. Instead of using the spiral perm rollers (they had these special types of rollers, I guess) she rolled my hair in tiny sections with rollers about the diameter of my pinkie.
Angela Davis would have killed for my hair it was so freaking big and fuzzy. I’ve never seen such a thing ever. Even soaking wet or full of gel type product, it was bushy. My own father looked at it, shook his head and just said “Oh, honey…” It took honest to god about a year and a half of constant cutting and conditioning so that it looked even vaguely remotely not unbelievably horrid.
Finally one day when I was getting a cut, the (new) stylist said “I think I can straighten the rest of this out for you.” It was about shoulder length then or so. She did, and when I saw my bone straight hair again, I cried all the way home I was so happy.
I’m not that vain, but JESUS it looked bad. Freakishly bad. Can’t get a comb through it bad.
For a while as a teenager, I had a hairstyle known in the punk subculture as a chelsea. It’s a sort of pixie cut. Basically, the back of the hair is extremely short, sometimes totally shaved, while the front bangs and hair surrounding your face is longer, usually ear-length or chin length. It can be really cute if you’ve got the face to pull it off.
I went to some Fantastic Sams type place to get a trim. I specifically said to leave the bangs long, just trim them.
Well, I ended up with something that looked like a man’s haircut. Like a flat-top or high-and-tight. It was awful.
The whole point of leaving the hair that frames your face longer is to make such a shockingly short cut more feminine. Alas, I totally looked like a dude.
Not hair, brows. I went to a salon that for some reason always made me feel slightly inferior when I walked in, like the stylists were snickering at me behind my back, “Look at Lil’ Miss Middle Income pretending to be a High Power Soccer Mom!” I found the staff somewhat off-putting, but I had only recently started getting my eyebrows waxed and wasn’t really familiar with where else to go.
Anyway, this sweet young thing did my brows, then rushed from the room in a hurry without saying a word, leaving me lying on the chair. She comes back with a mirror, and points out that, oops, hee hee, she’d accidentally ripped off half my right eyebrow. She apologized profusely and offered to get her boss. I surveyed the damage, realized the frames of my glasses would probably cover most of the error, and not wanting to get her in trouble, paid sans tip and left. If I had thought about it, I would have asked to see the manager and asked for a free brow pencil…they had some cosmetics for sale there.
I don’t go there anymore. I go to another, friendlier place that’s cheaper and the ladies always greet me with heartfelt a “Hey! Great to see you again! And what are we doing for you today?”
Ladies! I am curly haired and highlighted blonde. Double pain when done wrong. There are so many stories, I will cut it down to one.
I was being highlighted at a Toni and Guy (TIGI) salon, when my haircutter decided to give me layers (NEVER ON CURLY HAIR) and my colorist decided to take the foil off too soon, resulting in the washer girl using a toner! I WAS NOW GRAY AND GOLD! I looked at myself in the mirror after being in the “bowl” and my colorist was saying over and over…“how do you see yourself?” To which I finally replied, " I see myself in Feria". I walked out and had it fixed the day after; but as we all know, it’s never really fixed, now is it!
I was getting highlights, and the salon, for some reason, only put a towel on my back, not a plastic cover. My shirt had a gigantic bleached spot on it. I was unhappy.
I haven’t been to a salon in at least 10 years (my mom cuts my hair) but a few weeks before my brother’s wedding I went to a salon to get my hair colored and cut. Originally, it was all one length, and very long. I wanted a trim, as the ends were badly damaged, and slightly layered on the ends. Pretty easy request, right?
Well the color job was great but this bitch cut my hair very uneven, like a 2-3 inch difference between the right and left side. It was a true hackjob! My hair went from very long all over (like elbow-length) to, on one section on the right-hand side, so short that it wouldn’t fit into a ponytail or even behind my ear!!!
But what’s worse, I had to pay about $150… I chose an expensive salon thinking that would ensure that I would get the best stylist… I was wrong.
Thank god that my aunt is a hair stylist - I went to her the next day and she fixed it. (I would have gone to her in the first place but she lives 1.5 hours away).
Oh, and it’s more than 5 months later and there’s still a piece of hair that still won’t fit into my ponytail, so it’s always falling out and getting in my face. Yeah, my hair grows really slowly.
My sister and her husband both went to Ole Miss. Now Oxford Mississippi has many charms, but trying to plan a wedding there was extremely difficult. There was only one place we could get to do the hair of the bridal party before the morning wedding. Imagine Steel Magnolias. Now don’t change anything. Thats where we all got our hair done. She gave us all “gymnast” bangs, or puffy hair curled under over our foreheads. Not a good look for anyone. With my sister in a panic my mother decides to pacify her with champagne. We all get a little too drunk before 9 am and Sis giggles through her vows and I have to lean on the best man the whole way down the aisle.
It would be the last time I got my hair foiled. When I made the appointment, I specifically asked what time I’d need to be there in order to be done by five, as I had class at six. I was told two, so I made the appointment for that time. When I talked to the colorist, I showed her pictures of the very blonde look I was going for (I was about to graduate and wanted to look “fancy”). Not only did she not get done until seven, she made my hair DARKER than it was when I went in. She used way too many lowlights and then put a toner over the whole thing. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t really even give it much thought, but as I went to pay the receptionist said, “Weren’t you going to go lighter?”
Needless to say, I called and complained the next day and was given another appointment to have it fixed for free. Well, the new colorist did make me as blonde as I wanted, but somehow gave me bright orange sideburns. I silently told myself “fuck it”, went home and grabbed the Feria I had under the sink, and made the orange parts dark blonde.
Oh, and the first woman bleached my shirt collar. I didn’t even bother to bring that part up. Sigh.
About two years ago I went to my salon to get a trim. At the time, my hair had long layers and was just below my shoulders. I specifically told the stylist that I wanted the layers to start at my chin.
While I was getting my hair cut, another stylist was trying to get a huge wad of gum out of a 10-year-old girl’s hair. The girl was alone and crying, so my stylist left me a few times to go over and offer suggestions. Unfortunately she got so distracted that she forgot what she was doing on my hair. Instead of chin-length layers, I ended up with layers that started at my eyebrows. Sort of like a layered mullet.
It took eight months to grow out. I spent the rest of the summer wearing clips and headbands.
Bad perm: I was with my second husband (I was in my mid-20’s - this is important later) and needed a perm (I have super straight, super fine hair - perms had worked in the past to make it more manageable.) We were broke (he didn’t work) so he suggested I go to a beauty school for a perm - they were ungodly cheap - I figured why not?) I told the stylist that my front took 1/2 the time to process as the back and to use rods that were three times bigger than the ones in the back - I knew this as I had been getting perms for years and the stylist I had used when I had money pretty much figured out how to make it work. Did this student follow my instructions? Nope. Burned the front of my hair off with overprocessing. I still have a bald spot over my left eye around the bang line - it goes back a couple of inches so I have to wear bangs (long ones) for the rest of my life. 20 years later, it hasn’t grown back.
A stylist I’d gone to for several years as a teenager was having serious marital problems, so she wasn’t exactly on top of her game. As she was trimming my shoulder-length hair one day, she just lost her mind and started hacking at it with a razor. By the time the salon manager got her away from my hair and fixed the damage, I had about 2 inches of hair left all over my head. Needless to say I didn’t pay for that haircut and never went back.
I cut my own hair now. At least if I mess up I’ve only myself to blame.
While I did not have the horrifyingly bad hair cut you did-- I can relate to the feeling of dismay that one has when looking at one’s hair with a bad hair cut. And then one asks one’s mother, who will love you no matter what you look like for a second opinion, and she tells you that it looks fine, or cute or whatever, and you think, “No, no, it doesn’t.”
I have more or less shoulder-length brown hair. With just enough waves to it to not be quite straight. I sometimes have layers cut in it, because they give me some style. After one haircut, I felt like a lightbulb. The bottom-most layer was nearly flat, hung straight down, and was an inch and a half or two inches longer than the next layer. (Starting at that layer, my hair looked fine). The drop-off was way too dramatic between the bottom layer and the next layer up.
I went back four weeks later, maybe not even that, and told a different stylist that I didn’t really want to lose length, but she could take off up to that inch and a half in the interest in getting my hair to look stylish. She saw what was wrong with it immediately, and gave me a very nice hair cut.
I’ve been avoiding getting a haircut in this province, even though I’ve been living here a year, since I haven’t found a stylist in this city yet that I can trust. (I have been scheduling appointments with my regular stylist when I got home to visit my family on holidays). I tried, at one point this summer, to bite the bullet and just go to a place nearby. It can’t be as bad as I’m making it out to be. They scheduled an appointment for me with the owner, which I thought would be a good thing, her being experienced and all.
I went in and asked her to give my long (mid-back), fine-but-deceptively-thick, slightly wavy hair a style that will lay flat. If the top layers get too short, I told her, I will have triangle-shaped hair. Please leave the length, but I’m amenable to some layers on the bottom. Oh yes, she said. I understand, she said. So she starts chopping, and chops top layers at what she thought was my chin (when wet), but what I knew would end up being at ear-level when blown dry. I mentioned this. “Oh no, it won’t shorten up too much.”
Oh yes, it did. I know how my hair acts and you apparently do not. It looked much shorter on the one side than the other thanks to these hideous top layers that were far too short. And I had triangular hair. And did I mention that the layers didn’t blend in? Poufy top layer way out on its own, several inches below, next layer. Oh sure, the style would probably have looked good on someone with naturally straight hair, NOT on someone who has to coax their hair to lay flat every day (usually failing these days, unfortunately).
She blowdried it using a round brush to give a Farrah-Fawcett type effect and said, “now, see I think that looks really sexy.” umm, thanks. I paid my $35 and got the hell out of there, trying to reserve judgment until I had washed and styled it myself.
I spent the rest of the summer in a ponytail, and I can still see remnants of the bad haircut even now, though my home stylist did the best she could to blend in the layers.
I went to the local cheap hair salon (I think it was a Hair Cuttery, but I’m not sure) a few weeks before the end of the semester at the University of Maryland. I didn’t really need it yet, but it was easier for me to get my hair cut during a semester than it would be on winter break. Got a stylist who spoke minimal English. Came out looking like Bill Gates on a bad hair day.
That wasn’t the worst part, though. That happened a few days later. I came into my physics class only to see lots of cameras set up. Turns out a reporter from the Washington Post was interviewing my professor. The photographer who was there to get a picture of the professor took a picture of him talking to me. Not only did I have a horrible haircut, but I was dressed in the “whatever’s clean” style that is so popular among college students toward the end of a very busy semester.
It gets worse. I saved a copy of that article, with the picture. About a year later, I met the then-future Mr Neville. I ended up showing him the picture (and no, I have no idea why I did that). He took one look at it and said, “That’s not you. That’s a guy”.
Ooh, I forgot another one! I was about eight and my mother decided to get me a perm because I’d look *so * cute.
She took me to the stylist she’s used for a dog’s age. Unfortunately the woman pretty much only knew one style to use – the one appropriate for women of a Certain Age in '80s Texas.
That’s right, baby liz ended up with an Asian afro that was probably at least three to four inches high. I got teased about light sockets for months afterward. :smack:
About six years ago I moved to New York from Seattle, and the longest cohesive (true) story that has come out of it is in the haircut-from-hell genre. If you have some time to kill, the rest of it is here :
*“You see here,” as she ticks off the bullet points with her pen, “you get an image consultation, precision haircut, shampoo massage, conditioning treatment, blow dry, skin analysis, mini facial, choice of manicure or pedicure, shoulder massage, eyebrow wax AND lip wax – ALL for just $60!”
I start to think about how the first five items on the list are usually included with the standard haircut, but soon I’m wondering how many women in New York actually get their lips waxed. Is it painful? Do people compliment them the next day (Why Barbara! How smooth and hairless your lip looks!)? What happens when it starts growing back? Do you get stubble? Do they have to wait for the stubble to get a certain length before they get another wax? Do women actually go to work with lip stubble? Can that possibly be more attractive than a little girly-mustache? The words lip wax play over and over in my mind like a line from a particularly bad pop song. I’m supposed to say something.
Great.
“Wonderful,” crows the blonde. “Will that be Visa or MasterCard?”*