cutting my own hair – Project: Planet Leap

Hello all! Today I’m going to talk about my hair!

I’ve had hair my whole life,

haha, just kidding (I mean I have).

When I was younger I had super fine almost white hair but as I grew older and I got more sun exposure, my hair has darkened to a dirty-copper-blonde. Right now my hair is 100% my natural hair color.

When I was about 13, I dyed my hair for the first time, and it was to go see one of the Harry Potter movies midnight premier. I don’t remember which movie it was, but all of my friends and I dressed up as characters and I went as Ginny Weasley. It was a temporary wash out red dye that lasted about three weeks. After that, I dyed it red for real, which turned to a copper. Then, I bleached it and continued to bleach it (about seven times in all over the course of about six months) until it was platinum blonde. I went on a small bender where the tips were pink, but since my hair was so damaged, the pink would stay in for a week tops. My hair felt like straw so I dyed it back to a color a bit darker than my natural color (my natural color is pretty much impossible to find in dye). I kept it that way for a while, dyed the underside pink at one point.

Then I continued to dye it every year or so, usually going with a reddish light brown. I liked to be a bit darker than my natural color (which even in the last few years has darkened more. It used to be much more DIRTY blonde, which I wasn’t a huge fan of)

The last time I dyed my hair was a year ago, but since then I cut my hair to a pixie cut which cut off all the dyed parts and have been natural since.

I’ve also cut my hair into a pixie three times in my life, and have had a bob for a while too. I’ve only been to a real salon once (I also went to a barber shop place to get my pixie cut. The lady was amazing and cut it with a straight blade, the whole thing cost 20 dollars).

I don’t cut my hair short because I love short hair. I love change, for sure, but mostly the reason I cut it is because my hair is easily damaged. I get a lot of split ends and dead hair and when my hair gets longer, I have really bad shedding. I also have psoriasis which I had when I was about 10, then it was gone but came back when I was 17 or so and has been getting worse since. Its’ only on my scalp but it causes me a lot of discomfort and makes me feel gross about my hair, so I cut it off a lot.

I think the bob look is best on me. I have a fairly long neck and really broad shoulders, so I’ve always thought longer hair looks kind of out of place on me, but a longer bob is good. Right now my bob is SHORT, since it’s still growing out from the pixie cut.

So, I cut my own hair. I have cut my own hair since I was probably 16. Before that, my sisters or mom cut my hair. Now, all my sisters and my mom all cut our own hair. Just recently one of my sisters (hey-yo Angela) met and we both cut the backs of each others hair. Since we both have shorter bob-like hair, it’s really really hard to cut the back! So that was really helpful and fun.

The first pixie cut I had was cut by Angela, then the next I cut myself, then, as I said, the third was cut by the barbershop lady. The second pixie was a mistake. Come to think of it they all probably were but with the last one I still looked like a girl.

So, today this is what my hair looks like. I just got out of the shower and blowdried it.

If I want my bangs down, I HAVE to blowdry my hair right after I get out of the shower, which is really annoying! I think I look best when I wear bangs because my forehead is really huge. The top of my forehead to my brow bone is about the same length as my browbone to my lips. So. It is big. I don’t like blowdrying my hair down right after I get out of the shower because then it makes putting on makeup a lot harder. But, I have a really intense cowlick so I have to do it. The cowlick makes bangs really hard. Part of the reason my bangs are so thick is because I need the weight to hold the cowlick down. In case you are wondering, the cowlick is straight out of the ’70’s, it makes my hair go STRAIGHT back and then swoop around an a curl right in the middle. It is super great.

My hair is okay after I blowdry it except that both sides curl in the same direction. Meaning they both curl to the left. One side goes in, the other goes out. Like so:

Ooh wow, looks great. So effortless and windblown!

But why you curl out over here. Its mostly that one piece. I should cut that piece off. I always think that! But in reality my hair has done this since I was really young.

So, I straighten it.

This is the straightener I’ve used for years. I got it from, again, Angela, for I think my 17th or 18th birthday.

It takes about 5-10 minutes to straighten all of my hair. I curl the bangs a bit and then straighten both sides in and make them even.

Wow! So much better. Usually I would leave it like this, but my work is super strict about keeping hair out of the face, and since I already have bangs AND I have a hard time keeping all my hair behind my ears so it can fall over my face, I pin it back.