About five months ago, I got the worst haircut of my life, so I instantly wondered how to survive a bad haircut. I was seriously tempted to spend the rest of the year sequestered in my house with the blinds drawn, but instead I called my usual stylist and made an appointment for that same day. Here’s all of the advice she gave me on how to survive a bad haircut, not that I’ll need them again now that I’ve learned my lesson about cheating on my stylist with some hack (pun intended).
This is the first in my suggestions of how to survive a bad haircut because it’s important that you do it, right away, after the original, horrible cut. Your own stylist, the one you rely on a few times a year, will already know how to talk you off the ledge, communicate with you about a fix, and how to work with your hair. She won’t laugh at your misfortune, though she might give you a gentle “I told you not to trust anyone else!”
Your trusted stylist will understand the history and intricacies of your hair. She's the one who has seen your tresses at their best and worst, and knows precisely how to remedy even the most disastrous snips. Making an appointment with her should be your top priority. Whether it's blending uneven layers or suggesting a style that'll make the best of a bad situation, she'll guide you through this hair mishap with expertise and empathy. After all, she's more than just a stylist — she's your personal hair crisis manager.
My haircut disaster involved mis-matched and hack-y layers, so my stylist recommended I invest in a few cute headbands of the “thick and stretchy” variety for everyday, and the “thin and sparkly” for dress-up. Once my hair was pushed back, or held back, with a headband, the hack-y layers weren’t as noticeable, and I wasn’t as tempted to shave my head and start over.
She also recommended a couple of cute clips for dealing with the bad hair days she knew I’d have at least once a week as the hack haircut grew out a little. I found some adorable and inexpensive ones at Forever 21 and H&M, but you can even find them at the local drugstore.
Luckily, my hair disaster happened in winter, when I tend to wear hats anyway. Fedoras are in, and so are slouchy knit beanies! If your bad haircut happens in summer, wear a cute straw hat! Why not? They’re the perfect bad hair day disguise.
I’ve always wanted to try a daring non-natural color, so my stylist let me have it. The logic? Why not? You might find out you like it, and right now, you have nothing to lose. So I added the blue and purple streaks, and she’s right: I loved it! And now that my hair is growing out, and I need to look like me again, she’s dyed over them.
My stylist’s first bit of real advice for how to deal with a bad haircut in the long-term came near the end of my fix-it appointment. She told me, simply, to be patient. A bad haircut, alas, takes just as long as a good one to grow out… even longer, if the bad haircut was too short or choppy. Bad bangs will take about 6 weeks to grow out. Bad layers, about 10. Be patient, and if you have to, schedule an in-between “trim and shape-up” with your Good Stylist to make sure you keep to the growing-out plan.
You know what? You’re beautiful, and bold, and you can laugh at yourself. So who cares about one bad haircut in your lifetime of looking smashing? Go with it! Wear your too-short hair in a faux hawk to work. Dye it an unreal shade of pink. Buy those clippies you thought were way too gaudy for you, and wear them anyway! And who cares if your ears stick out when you wear a baseball cap? You’re still you, fashionable and fun and funky.
See? A disastrously-bad haircut isn’t the end of the world! It’s important to work out a game plan with your stylist as soon as you can, and to stick to it. But other than that, why not try something new and bold in the meantime? Do you have any other bad haircut survival tips to share? Or maybe a haircut horror story?