I’m considering a major radical change. I have a thread in the pit that could possibly explain my angst but I really just want NO hair. At present, it’s pretty long (mid-back) but I’m thinking Anne Heche or Meg Ryan (even shorter). Has anyone ever made a severe change like this?
Yes. However, unintentionally. As a teenager I had very long hair and went to get a trim. The “trim” was a hatchet job, and my hair was about as short as you described. It took a while to grow it long again. I really do not like very short hair, at least on me.
I will say this and run like hell…what it is about having a child that makes women cut their hair off?
I am a female, with children.
::ducking::
I haven’t gone the no hair route, but I chop it all off every 10 years or so. Just did it again last week to chin lenghth. This was not as severe a change as my hair was just a bit longer than shoulder lenghth. The previous time it went from half way down my back to buzz cut in the back.
I’m a guy, I’ll say that right off. I had hair down to my shoulders. And I cut that off one night, all the way down to the scalp. It was quite the change and took some getting used to.
Crap…that should be length. Times 2.
Yep, same length as yours, and I chopped it off to right above my ears.
Grew it back out for 10 years (hip length), then chopped it at the shoulder. It was just getting to be too much of a hassle.
Blonde, I have wondered the same thing, as I was preggers with Child # 3 when I cut my hair short. I suppose it has something to do with wanting to control some aspect of your appearance, and really, your hair is the only thing you can mess with.
My wife did that after our son was born. I guess it’s a combination of having to spend less time with it, and there is less for the kid to tug on while nursing and, later, when learning to grasp things(which, I understand is painful. I shave my head, so I have nothing to tug on*).
*I’m Irish, too. Insert your own joke here.
My mom went from almost waist-lenght to completely bald. It actually looked really nice. She did it partially because her hair is very fine and limp and it looked like a wilted plant all the time, and partially because of a bet.
On the other hand, I can’t count the nuber of times I’ve gotten a hack job at the salon and walked out with less hair than I had been expecting to. That’s one of the reasons I swore off salons and started cutting my own hair. Yeah … no accidents there … I hear the “gone through a meat grinder” look is in this season.
There was a woman working at a BBQ place in Evanston a couple years ago that had just donated her hair to Locks For Love right before I met her.
Rawr! Short hair on women is too hot, necks are one of the sexiest things to me so the more that is exposed, the happier I am 
Casey1505 and Lyllyan –
I will invoke serious backlash here – but, the old “the baby will pull my hair!” excuse just doesn’t do it for me. Ask any man (hell, I think, there’s a thread out there as we speak) - long hair looks best on women. Unless, of course, you’re a supermodel.
As I near 40, I imagine I’ll have to re-think my hair choices, but as of right now, I’ll stick with long, blonde hair.
No backlash here. Like I said to my wife after she cut her hair real short after The Boy was born, she wasn’t buying me a watch fob, and I didn’t marry her for her hairstyle.
She missed the reference, and just looked at me weird.
Not that drastic but on a lark (and a few drinks) I cut 13 inches off my locks last winter (oh about November or December) to about shoulder length and it’s already grown back two inches.
I don’t miss the length at all as I have (and always had) thin and fine hair. It made all the difference in the world about how I looked and how I felt about myself. I look much better.
Once. I’ve had long hair all my life, and eventually I just got sick of it. A cousin of mine had just got hers cut fairly short, though not as short as the OP’s thinking…about nine inches long in the front, (falling even with my chin on either side) and tapered slightly towards the back, with an inch or so on the back of my neck buzzed.
As far as convienance went, my hair was certainly more managable. I hardly had to brush it, hardly had to dry it, and it took a lot less time (not to mention shampoo and conditioner) to wash. It was not noticeably cooler, however, unless I was excersizing and actually sweating. Then it would make a difference, but otherwise having short hair was the same as tying my hair back in a ponytail.
But as it turned out, I did not like the way it looked after a while, though I did like it at first. It made my face look rounder and I couldn’t do too much with it other than leave it down, curl it under. And it was too short to pull back and would blow everywhere. My friends didn’t think it looked good either and theystill refer to it as “When Orange Skinner got that hair-cut that made her look like a rat.” I let grow back. It’s most of the way down my back again. Though it’s a little less convienant (like getting caught in my BF’s mouth when kissing and taking forever to dry), I love the way it looks, the way it feels, and I don’t think I’d ever cut it again.
However, I say chop it all, Cookie, especially if it’s convienance you’re thinking. (I’ll have to check out your pit thread after I post this). Even assume you do hate it short: eventually it’ll grow back. At least you’ll know how it looks short, and of course you might end up loving it.
I don’t object to short hair on women, it depends on the woman and the hairstyle. I do tend to prefer long hair.
Make sure it’s what you really want. Also make sure it’s not just a maintainance thing. I have waist-length hair and it costs me very little, in time or money. My friends trim it for me. Though it’s a big pain if, say, I go swimming without putting it up, generally I just wash it at night and brush it in the morning and I’m ready to go. My mom, on the other hand, has short hair that takes her half an hour or 45 minutes to do each morning.
It’s probably tempting right now to cut it off because of the heat; I know that feeling quite well. There was a time when I was in Florida and would have sold my soul for a claw clip. But you’ll be stuck with that hair in the winter, too. If that’s an issue, look into quick and easy updo’s instead.
I shaved off all my hair for charity once (I had unkempt shoulder length hair at the time).
It was fun and since then I have never grown my hair long again, but it did cause me a few problems; because I was a relatively poor manual worker at the time, I used to get some of my clothes from army surplus; the combination of close cropped hair and military garb caused me to be mistaken for a skinhead/neo-nazi on two occasions (one of which I was able to explain my way out of, the other one I was simply beaten up).
I chopped my hair from mid-back to chin length several years ago, grew it back out, and chopped it again. It just keeps getting shorter and shorter, and I love it. My hair is very fine and kind of thin, and it has all the body of overcooked spaghetti. When it was long, it was always flat and limp, and I never had the time, energy or inclination to do anything with it, really. It was just always back in a clip or ponytail or half pony tail, and it never looked all that great, to be honest.
The shorter cuts are far, far more flattering for me. Right now, it’s shorter than my husband’s, and kind of spiky-ish and tousled, and it works for me. I hop out of the shower, towel it, comb it with my fingers real quick, and leave it. (If I’m really ambitious I’ll throw in a bit of gel as it air dries, but it doesn’t really make much difference.) Total hairstyling time now: about 45 seconds.
My mother, OTOH, spends half an hour or so every day on her short hair. Of course, she fights our hair’s natural tendencies instead of using them the way I do. Her hair is permed, and has to be rolled and sprayed, and all sorts of other stuff every day, where mine just kind of lays however.
I do kind of miss the way my long hair felt when I ran my fingers through it, though.
I shaved my head a little over a year ago. My hair is thinning pretty quickly anyway, so I decided to give it the old heave-ho ahead of schedule. Turns out to have been the best decision I ever made with regards to the top of my head. Plenty of people have told me they think it looks good, and I absolutely NEVER received any kind of compliment about my hair when I still had it. Of course, that might have to do with my lack of interest in styling it, but that just serves to underscore the rightness of my decision. If I’m never going to bother to do anything with it, may as well get rid of it!
College. Hair in a long braid (almost to my waist, when braided), always wet because of swim classes and general humidity. I went to a salon, of the sort where the person who cuts your hair is called a “beauty operator” rather than a “stylist” or “aesthetician.” She said she would only cut it to shoulder length because it was too radical, and then I could come back for shorter in about a week, if I wanted.
I was really tired of having a damp braid so when her back was turned I grabbed those cute scissors they have and trimmed . . . I mean hacked . . . the whole braid off at the nape of my neck. So she had to cut it considerably shorter in order to make it work.
It didn’t work. Looked awful. This is what college is for, to learn things.