008: Oh shit, I have bangs now
on hairy decisions
Good evening! This week’s post might feel a bit gendered since I’m talking about my hair, but I promise it’ll still be a fun read. I even dug out my iPad and good ol’ Procreate for this post, so I hope the extra effort and illustrations can make up for the less relatable topic. Lastly, I searched for way too many Severus Snape reference photos and now I’m worried I’m going to get weird advertisements.
Written at home, after I scrapped a half-written piece on being a happy curmudgeon with no Halloween plans when I realized it was untrue. I am neither an old man nor am I bad-tempered, and my calendar reveals that I still like people. I’m enjoying this year where Halloween is an optional activity, free of being a mouse (duh!) and way before trick-o-treating becomes relevant again.
I’ve finally cut off the last of my blonde hair. Now that it’s all gone, I almost miss it. I find myself looking at blonde k-pop idols with envy and bravado (“I think I could pull that off!”), but I learned the hard way how difficult it is to keep bleached hair healthy.
“It seems like your hair has gotten too dry,” said Gary, my longtime hair stylist, who has been cutting hair for over two decades in Nob Hill. He scolds me like an Asian dad. “You’re using too much shampoo; I can even feel some of the product. You took better care of it back when it was rose gold.”
He sighed after reminiscing. “Well, since we’re not coloring your hair today—What do you think of short hair?”
“So long as it’s flattering… I trust you. I just want my hair to be healthy again and to trim off all the split ends. But please, don’t give me a pixie cut! I don’t want my face to look like a potato.”
Ten minutes later, about half of my hair is on the floor. He holds up three pairs of scissors in his hand. “I finished the texturized dry cutting part. Look, I had to use three different scissors because your hair is so thick! But it’s fine because I sharpened my blades this morning since I knew you were coming in.”
He then goes on to wash my hair, which now barely grazes my shoulders. After blow drying my hair and smoothing it out, he starts measuring out the pieces in the front of my face and pressing them against a blade above my eye line.
“Am I getting… bangs?!”
“I think it will look cute.”
“…”
“Do you not want them? I can cut your hair like normal again, but I think a change will be nice.”
I paused—usually Gary just asks what I want and cuts to his judgment. Today was the first time he suggested something completely off the cuff.
“Okay, let’s go for it.” I said, without much thinking. My current phase of trying new things must have extended to a fringe as well.
He was surprised, as if expecting I would push back harder. As he prepared to cut, he cautioned, “They are a lot of upkeep. You will need to style them every morning.”
“Okay, then teach me how,” I said. “It can’t be harder than having pink hair, right?”
Advisory: The following section contains many bad doodles. I apologize for their quality but I also wasn’t the art major in the family (Catherine 👀). I won’t be upset if you decide to stop reading here. Proceed at your own risk.
Fast forward one week, and almost every day has been a bad hair day.
What Gary didn’t tell me was that I’d wake up every morning looking like this:
I’d follow his instructions and round brush and blow dry my bangs upward to look like this:
About ten minutes later, if they feel like it, they’ll fall into a more flattering position:
And thirty minutes later, they’ll get tired and deflate (sort of like me). At that point I don’t have many options (besides buying more intense hairspray, I suppose). Here are some that I’ve tried:
The Farrah Fawcett - you curl your bangs outward in an attempt to keep them out of your face, but go overboard and suddenly you look like you’re from the 70s.
My hair is big enough to hold secrets now The Princess Pouf - After spending an inordinate amount of time stabbing your hair with a million bobby pins and smoothing it all out to look elegant, all you need now is a tiara.
The Sailor Moon - You try to re-curl them, but the bangs are sassy and decide to turn the other way in revenge, like Sailor Moon’s bangs. You can decide whether to pretend like you styled them this way intentionally.
I don’t think I can pull off the high twin pigtails though The Severus Snape - Do nothing and just let your bangs hang out on your face like a limp noodle. This is also what happens when I’m out for more than an hour and can’t redo my hair.
Unfortunately, this is what James gets to see most of the time. Mmm, sexy.
I’m appalled at how much my mood is impacted by my hair. I care about my looks in that I like to dress cleanly and wear makeup, but I have never been more frustrated at the amount of time it takes to get ready in the morning now. (Should I just go bald?)
Popular advice says you should make your bed first thing every morning, so you can accomplish the first task of the day and start your day right. Starting your day with bad hair is the opposite of that. When your hair goes wrong, it feels like everything will only go downhill from there.
When I dyed my hair pink, it took over 7 hours to safely bleach and another 2 hours to finalize the color. I had so much foil in my hair, I thought my neck was going to give out from the weight. While he painted my hair, Gary and I discussed how getting piercings and tattoos is addictive. He argued that dyeing hair could be just as addictive.
“It’s less about the act of doing it,” he said. “It’s more about making a decision so different from what is the norm that you have to want it badly. Nobody wants things badly anymore, so it feels good when you experience that. I think what is addictive is the feeling of control, where you are the only one who decides how your body will look.”
What he said was true—having pink hair became a decision I had to wholly own. Dyeing my hair such an ostentatious color, especially when I was still working for the Big 4, was pretty polarizing. Some people loved it, and some people hated it (but were nice). As a result, I had to love my pink hair so much that I wouldn’t care about what others had to say—and it was liberating.
The pink hair was a staple of my identity and outward image for a good period of time, which helped me become less sensitive to others’ opinions. In fact, I liked the benefit to my mental health so much, I wrote a journal entry titled “Why everyone should get pink hair.” (Which is super cringe, now that I think back on it.)
With the halo of nostalgia, I let myself forget how crazy the upkeep was. I had to avoid washing it as much as possible, so dry shampoo became my best friend as I migrated to washing my hair twice a week. When washing, I needed to use expensive purple and blue shampoos and conditioners to make sure my hair wouldn’t turn brassy (read: orange) from the hard minerals in tap water. Lastly, if I wanted the color to stay as vibrant as it was, I needed to come in for monthly touch-ups and use rose gold conditioner to tone my hair in between sessions.
Compared to back then, I suppose getting up a few minutes earlier each morning to style my bangs properly isn’t too big of an ask.
It’s funny how in the moment, an option can look so attractive, only to later show us all the hidden costs they bring with them. Even when I anticipated some of those costs, they still threw me on a frustrating learning curve. In that way, everything has its own bag of flaws—and growing up is learning how to roll with them without breaking down, especially when there isn’t an immediate solution. We all choose our own paths—be it career, partner, location, or hairstyle—and we get to live with both the benefits and downsides of each decision.
I still haven’t decided how I feel about my bangs, but instead of letting my frustration override this decision, I’m going to try to lean into this new hairstyle and build a habit so it can be less painful. I installed a mount for my Dyson Airwrap to ease the burden of setting up my styling tools every morning. I also am watching some YouTube tutorials to learn some tricks and speed up my learning process. Lastly, I’m practicing every day to build my muscle memory and figure out what look works best for my routine.
I’m confident in due time, it’ll get easier and I’ll forget about all the downsides of having bangs. Either that, or I’ll grow them out and do some more research before I see Gary again.