The internet will have you believe that 2020 is the year to learn a new skill. Become an expert in a field you’ve long felt drawn to. Dip your toes into previously unchartered waters. Bake banana bread and so forth.
As a person on the internet, I too have said, nay, encouraged, these things. “Experiment with a bold lip,” I have cooed. “Grow out your eyebrows.” The appeal of beauty is that it is fun, and I encourage you to play and experiment.
But play with caution. When it comes to the hair, I am in favour of a slightly more considered approach. Before you commit to a trend and decide to play home hair stylist, give pause, read the below, then act accordingly.
DO NOT. Cut your own bob.
I am hugely in favour of dramatic haircuts, having fun with beauty and using lockdown as a time to experiment.
“Why then, Gemma,” you say. “Why shouldn’t we cut our own bob?”
I’m so glad you asked.
A slight trim of the hair is barely noticeable. If your trim is a little wonky, there are ways to style the hair to hide it. It will grow back swiftly. If you’re a perfectionist and want it rectified, either at home or in salon, very little additional length will need to be taken off the hair to get the ends looking even again.
A dramatic hair change requires time, training and precision (I wish that last one had started with a ‘T’ but that’s okay). Hairstylists have studied. They know whether or not a bob will work for your hair type and texture, whether it will suit your face shape, and whether or not you will require layers to give the hair movement. They can walk you through exactly the amount of styling and maintenance your new ‘do will require each day, and give you an opportunity to think through your decision.
You know what won’t afford you that time? Yourself, alone, holding craft scissors and talking to yourself in the bathroom mirror over a bottle of sav blanc. You don’t know what you’re doing. Sure, it could end up looking great, but nailing transformations like this is someone’s job.
“But Gemma, you said yourself that a bad haircut can be rectified and that hair grows back!” You’re right! I did! But rectifying a bad bob will entail your hairstylist taking even more off the length. Is that something you’re prepared for?
Use this time to test the waters. Decide whether or not shorter locks are for you. Embrace the “hair tuck,” pictured both above and below, which initially reached mainstream popularity during Tory Burch’s Autumn Winter 2014 show at New York Fashion Week. Simply give the hair a bit of texture at the roots and nape of the neck, gather the hair as if you were tying a low ponytail, then tuck it in to your blazer, coat, shirt, knit or whatever other item of clothing you’re wearing (I regret trying out a “list” there as much as you’ll regret cutting your own bob). Simple, chic, effortless, undone- the hair tuck.
DO. Invest in your tools.
Where a complete hair length transformation is ill advised, a subtle trim leaves a far larger margin for error and is therefore less likely to end in a disaster- and is significantly simpler for your hairstylist to remedy on your next salon visit.
Regardless of whether you’re choosing to go high risk with a transformative hair cut or managing your expectations with a little trim, your kitchen scissors aren’t going to cut it (pun absolutely not intended, and admittedly only something I’m noticing on second edit). Although I personally trim my fringe using moustache scissors I stole from my father (more on that shortly), scissors specifically designed to cut hair are essential. Hair cutting shears are sharper, thinner and deliver a more precise cut than kitchen or craft scissors, allowing for more natural movement and shape through the hair. Hair is best trimmed using fine, vertical cuts than horizontal slices, the former being near impossible with large kitchen scissors or blunt craft scissors.
DO NOT. Follow a “viral video” hair hack.
I’ll admit that I don’t fully understand TikTok and, subsequently, nothing makes me feel older than TikTok, but I can say both objectively and confidently that cutting your hair to the tune of a viral “hair hack” video is a deeply terrible idea.
Let’s begin with the word “hack.” Pairing “hack” and “hair” together does not fill me with confidence. The “cut with rough or heavy blows” definition aside, hack in this context is a shortcut, a way of making things quicker and more efficient. Efficiency does not a good haircut make. The reason we need the correct tools is because we need to apply care and consideration to our trim. A “hack” implies the very opposite.
Instead, follow trained, professional hairstylists. Watch their tutorials while sitting in a different room to your scissors, learn from them, absorb the information, then follow along yourself as you hit play a second time. Remember in school when your teacher would trick you with one of those “Read all of the questions first before you pick up you pen,” tests, and you’d start scrawling your answers down immediately and the last question would read “Ignore all of the above. Just write your name and you’re done.”? Yes? That applies here. Learn, then do.
DO. Cut your own fringe.
Honestly, why not.
The advice that hit the internet immediately upon whispers of isolation began to circulate, and advice that left my own mouth at one point, was “Do not cut your own fringe in lockdown.”
Within a month, I had done the very opposite- a decision I happen to vehemently stand by. There is no better time than quarantine to experiment and have fun with beauty, and a fringe will grow into curtain bangs and can, in time, be hidden by a stealth tuck behind the ears, before your regular hairdresser even realises how poor a job you’ve done. Where a poorly executed bob can take well over a year to return to its former length, and will require multiple salon visits to rectify, a fringe can be grown out, pinned or restyled in a little over a month.
As above, follow a tutorial by a legitimate hairstylist when cutting in a fringe. I am fortunate in that I already possessed the remnants of a slightly-grown out curtain bang situation and therefore had something of a guide in place to work with, however trim my fringe to slightly longer than I’d like it so I have room for error, then I blend it out using this video by Jen Atkin. As mentioned, I use moustache scissors to trim my fringe based entirely on accessibility/ease of theft from my father, and while I’m near certain that this is not ideal, they’re small, sharp and designed to trim hair. They work a treat.
DO NOT. Colour your hair at home.
I understand that your roots are growing out and your greys are showing, but do not use a permanent nor semi-permanent hair colour on your hair at home.
Think of it this way- when you have your hair coloured in-salon by a professional, it takes hours. This isn’t because the hair colourist loves your company and wants to spend their day with you. It is entirely unrealistic to assume that you will be able to achieve the same results with zero training and in 40 minutes. If the finished product does happen to look and feel good, you’ve still applied chemicals to your locks that can affect the long term strength and integrity of the hair, and alter the way in which it will react to colour on your next salon visit.
Instead, opt for wash-out colour solutions and temporary toners, as recommended by award winning colourist Yoshi Su in our August 26 Home Hair Colour episode of the Glow Journal podcast.
Photography: Melissa Cowan
Hair & Makeup: Sophia Pafitis
Model: Amelia Noorani at Precision MGMT
Styling & Art Direction: Gemma Watts
This article is not sponsored and all views are the author’s own.
