In Which I Cut My Hair

After all the bad luck we've been having (I had a car accident, we had a child in the ICU unit for three days, someone in China stole $1000+ out of our bank account) I figured that was a clear cosmic kick in the butt. I made a promise- time to pay up.

After putting it off for a week, I finally decided to just do it. My husband took his pocket knife, which has scissors on them, and cut five to six inches of hair. It feel so weird! I feel like I have short hair, which obviously isn't the case.

Time for pictures!

I know it doesn't look that much shorter, but I think it's the camera angle.

I knelt at the side of the fire pit and smudged myself the entire time with a sage smudge. It took forever for my hair to burn, which I attribute to the good health of my hair.

Although it felt like a huge amount of hair, I think that it was only the growth I've achieved since I made the promise. I'm going to keep growing after this.

I gotta say, too, I felt much lighter and it felt like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. I'm happy I fulfilled a vow I made almost two years ago and I feel better, too. I've gone from past classic to hip length, as far as I can tell. It may be tailbone length, too. I need to get used to it before figuring out exactly where I am lengthwise.

Comments?

New England Thanksgiving and Contemplating a Cut

I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving. We headed back up to New England for a very busy holiday.

I wanted to take some more pictures of the New England headstones, but the one time I got a chance to hop out of the car, my camera battery died. That has never happened, especially since I had charged the battery the night before. I was so bummed, but it gives me an excuse to go back to New England sooner.

My very generous mother in law bought tickets for herself, my sister in law, my daughter and myself to see Boston Ballet perform The Nutcracker. The seats weren't bad, but the small child in front of me's strange posture forced me to watch the entire ballet leaning over my seat. Nevertheless, it was a magical experience and reminded me of seeing the ballet for the first time when I was about 8. After that, my mother enrolled me in ballet and I performed in the ballet every year until I was seventeen.

We had to take a bunch of toll roads as we headed up north. We had planned on getting an EZ Pass, but something happened that is making us rethink that. My husband was so upset he asked me to write a blog post about it because "You have a bigger audience than I do."(I don't know how true that is.) I'm currently working on that blog post, but if anyone has any input about the EZ Pass, I'd love to hear it, good or bad.

I've been having this hankering to cut layers into my hair. Every year I get bored and I guess it's happening now. I've thought about bangs (so trendy right now) or just long layers to break up the shape of my hair.

I keep having to remind myself of how patient I've been and how long it would take to grow out any impulsive hair cuts. I've been thinking about how my updos won't be quite as nice looking with layers poking out all over the place. I think as long as I get through Christmas without a cut, I'll be in the clear, so I've promised to wait at least that long before deciding.

Have you had layers or bangs added to your hair and regretted or loved it? I'd love to hear from you!

Also, I'm considering doing a beauty give away for my 100th blog post. I'm putting things together and it should be a good one, so keep checking back. I'm guessing the give-away will be happening around the New Year.

New Tutorial: How to S&D

Aamba, this one is for you!

The Truth About Trims

I've recently taken up a new hobby.

I know it sounds crazy, but from September 2007 until May 2010, nothing sharp touched my hair. No trims, nothing.

I started to doubt the health of my hair. How could one go two and a half years without a single haircut? People didn't believe me when I told them that.

It's true, though. I remember my last haircut because it was a doozy. After that, every time I thought about getting a trim, I remembered my last haircut.

I was told that I needed to trim in order for my hair to grow. That somehow, your hair grows faster if you trim. That doesn't even make any sense! Your hair follicles magically know that your ends have been trimmed and that stimulates growth? B.S., I say.

I do think that it may have the appearance of faster growth. If you're having breakage from the bottom, it's going to seem like you're not growing. You are growing, but your growth is breaking off. If you need to trim (and a lot of people honestly do,) you are having decreased breakage, causing gained length.

I guess I'm one of those super lucky people. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I wasn't always this gentle with my hair. I remember ripping a brush through my wet tangles, listening to the sound of my hair breaking and thinking nothing of it.

When I finally started to evaluate my hair, last November, I surveyed the damage, thinking I would have to cut a huge amount of my hair off due to self-inflicted damage. I was amazed to discover my length was in pretty good shape. I started pampering my hair, using moisturizing treatments, gentle combing through tangles with a yak's horn comb, and giving up the elastics for wooden hairsticks and forks and I think it's helped a lot.

So, new hobby. I've started to S&D. That's "Seek and Destroy" and it involves bright light and a sharp pair of scissors. I literally go through my hair, strand by strand, looking for split ends. Once found, I snip them off just above the break. It's time consuming, but it's fun to do while watching reruns of Buffy and it's just so damn satisfying. "SNIP!" Plus, I preserve the length.

I know that if I went into a salon and asked for a trim, they'd probably insist on cutting inches off (because that's what's happened every time I've been in a salon.) I know my hair isn't damaged. The longest split was under an inch and most are just at the tip of my hair. The vast majority of my hair is split-free. No need for a drastic cut.

So, if you're looking to grow and want to forsake the salon, S&D. I think you'll find it's immensely satisfying to cut the split ends out and watch them fall to the floor.