4 months ago I got my hair cut in a “style” for the first time. Before that I just had it very long and all one length since 1996 or so.
My priceless hair dresser, whom I trust with my life, cuts me a fairly modern version of my long hair whenever I visit him, which is twice a year.
I’ve had my current style for a year, now. After 15 years with long hair in a ponytail, my hair thinned to the point that keeping it long was no longer an option. Once short, my hair sticks straight out of the scalp so I look like an idiot. Dos are impossible. So now I sport a mohawk, sides trimmed to almost bare skin and the naturally erect two-inch brush standing tall on top. Hides the thinning top nicely. And I look just as contradictory as I want to: a scary punk rocker a.k.a soft-spoken intellectual nerd, or the leftie anarchist vegan a.k.a. meat-loving hunter and weightlifter.
Since I was about 7 and finally given permission to decide how to cut my own hair. Since I’m a low maintenance kind of fellow, I generally go with some variant of a “crew cut” with the occasional spat of growing it out sufficiently long to frost it.
For about the past five years, I’ve worn a high & tight military cut, similar to this guy. OK, it’s basically a crew cut, but my hair grows so damned fast that in six weeks it will look like the guy in msmith537’s link. Except that would look ridiculous on me, what with all the gray, so it’s back to the barber for another crew cut.
After decades of fighting with an incorrigible cowlick I’ve had since I was a baby, I woke up one morning and decided that fighting a losing battle with my hair was no longer in the cards. I got a crew cut and haven’t looked back.
Mrs. Homie hates it.
I change mine occasionally, but almost always go back to short on the sides, blend the top in so that I can comb it straight back. The last haircutter I had (I can’t call her a stylist) didn’t really understand the short-on-the-side-blend-in-the-top-so-I-can-comb-it-straight-back request, so she cut it short on the sides and short on the top. I think that I would almost get by in any of the armed services with my current hair style. Even her boss was like: :eek: Don’t charge him for that, it is *way *too short, that isn’t what he requested.
But what the heck, it will grow back.
Anyway, the question was, when did I lock into that. I guess about 15 years or so ago. Like I said though, it does change sometimes. I occasionally part it on the side. And even flirted with parting it in the middle for a while.
I’ve been shaving my head for about eight years. I’ve occasionally let it grow back in, but that never lasts more than a few months. The problem is that, once it grows out to a certain length I pretty much have to go get it trimmed, and then keep doing so on a regular basis, and for me it’s just a pain in the neck to get around to doing it. By contrast, it’s very simple to remember to shave my head while I’m in the shower in the morning.
With a shaved head I also don’t have to worry about what my hair looks like when I get off work and remove my hat (bandana, actually).
The Farrah Fawcett look was in when I was in high school, so I definitely don’t have the same style now. The current 'do is just above the shoulders and much easier to deal with.
My hair style has changed with technology—I have very thick and curly hair. I had to keep it short as a kid and had a poodle-y shag in the 70s. Very short in the 80s and finally grew it out in the 90s with the popularity of the flat iron and shine spray. I started to gray, so I went lighter, then re-embraced my curls, so now I experience variety and do my hair with bangs or not, curls or not, dark or light, depending on how I feel. Because of my inability to change it in high school, I don’t lock myself in to any style now. I did a Farrah flip not too long ago, and a Bettie Paige a few days later, just for fun.
I’ve had the same haircut since I was about 16 - I’m 33 now. The only break was a few months where I had short hair (in a kind of soccer mom cut) as a rescue cut after a hairdresser decided that I’d really suit a mullet.
I thought I was Cyndi Lauper in high school. I had it dyed with pink and blue and black mixed in my natural red, shaved partially on the sides, and the rest was long and crimped with big poofy bangs.
I think if I tried to pull that off now I would scare small children too much. Including my own.
I keep my hair all one length, to my shoulders, with my natural curls moussed. I’ve had it like this for about five years.
God forbid me to have kept the same 'do I had in school - I was a Duran Duran fan for LeBon’s Sakes!
I’m no slavish follower of fashion - I know what suits me - but I’m a firm believer that the big mistake many people (okay women) make is (a) wearing the wrong bra size, (b) buying cheap jeans and © sticking with a hairdo that has long gone out of fashion and doesn’t suit them. You can’t cut corners on a good haircut, it’s the one thing I spend money on. Once every six weeks, at a top London salon. Costs me over $100. And is worth every penny.
My hair changes frequently (but is always generally shortish).
I’ve had my current style about seven years, interspersed with short periods of trying to grow it out. That never lasts, as my hair grows very slowly, and there are long in-between times of my hair literally growing out (rather than down) so that I look like a puffball until the weight of the hair finally makes it succumb to gravity. I can’t stand period, and it lasts for months, so I get it cut short again. In high school I went from shorter than I have now, to past my shoulders with lots of layers that made the waves and curls more prominent. I don’t have the patience to deal with my hair when it gets long anyway, so its slow growth is beneficial in that way. It means that any changing of the style, though, has to be committed to for a long time, since that’s how long it takes to grow it out enough to change it.
If I had straight hair, I’d always wear it long, though. It would be difficult to make me get it cut beyond the occasional end-trim, as I love how straight hair looks long.
'Bout two months ago. For about a decade, I had the same shoulder length cut, and would intermittently add/remove bangs. My current do is almost exactly like this. It’s maybe about a half inch longer in the back, and I heart it.
I don’t feel too locked in right now, though I do tend to stick with a hairstyle for years and years. When I was a teenager, if my hair was an inch too short I felt it was The End of The World! Now I’m like, do whatever, it’ll grow back.
One thing I do insist on is that my hair parts in the middle. It didn’t originally, but it does now, and I’m not interested in training it back where it “belongs”.
It’s been about ten years since I realized my hair had thinned to the point where I was getting dangerously close to “comb-over” territory, so I went the barbershop and had them use a #2 clipper on me. Now I don’t even have to pay for a haircut - it’s so easy my wife can cut my hair!
It varies slightly in length, but it’s been pretty constant since 1999. I started my senior year of college that year. I have extremely curly hair, though, so as a guy, my options are generally pretty limited. I go for the “so short you can’t tell it’s so curly” look.
Two and a half years ago I went from thick, wavy, and dreadfully heavy hair halfway down my back to short and sassy. I miss the curls a bit, but not enough to give up the short hair. Makes me look younger and it’s easier to take care of.
Last year I decided to try highlights (first time coloring for me, other than grey). My natural highlights are gold and copper tones, so those are the colors we put in. Looks fantastic, done in layers, not in obvious platinum-blonde stripes on my very dark brown hair. I wanted to see colors in my hair that I normally only see when I’m in the sun. Not too many people have commented on it because it’s not too obvious to them, but I’m happy to see it in the mirror.
I’ve had the same default hair style since I managed to grow out my bangs during 5th and 6th grade, which coincided with my hair texture changing from thick but straight to thick but wavy. The wavy is harder to braid, so my default hair is either long hair down or long hair in a low pony tail.
The only major deviation from this was during college: I started my first year with a layered look, and the following summer I had short hair because I was cosplaying as Remus Lupin at several events. But I’ve been growing it back out since then, and even with a major anti-split-end trim last month, it’s down past my shoulders again.
I haven’t decided on color yet: My hair is brownish, with a slightly red tone, especially in the right lighting. From 6th grade through 8th or 9th (can’t remember) I added blonde highlights. From 9th grade onward, I’ve done red on-and-off, usually with chemical dyes in the winter and henna in the summer. But I haven’t dyed my hair in probably a year now.
When I was a kid in the '70s I wanted my hair as long as possible. ‘Possible’ being defined by my mom. Got to about shoulder length when I was 12. In the '80s I experimented with the rat tail, these ‘louver’ things on the sides, etc. Then I got tired of messing with it, and for a long time I’d go into Super Sluts and ask for a #4 on top and a #2 on the sides. Never had to comb it. Just a small dot of gel. I did a flat-top a couple of times in the '90s, including a real '50s style. I finally settled into a pattern of getting it cut short and letting it grow for four months before cutting it again. Last year I had my hair cut ‘respectably’ (I was going to be an HR person in a short film that didn’t happen), and didn’t cut it again until January.
Then I let it grow. Finally, in the last month, I got tired of the emo look of having my forelock fall into my eyes. Last Friday at lunchtime I went across the street from the office and asked for a crew cut. Not a '50s/'60s-style, but about 3/4" on top. The barber left the part, but I had him spike it up with a little gel. Instead of the usual ‘You got your hair cut!’ when I got back to the office, I was greeted with ‘Hey, your hair looks good!’ So I’m thinking I’ll keep the long-ish crew cut for a while.
Which is not to say that I won’t go back to letting it grow until I can’t stand it anymore; but it will be short for a while.