hair cuts and language barriers

I spent most of my day at the DMV today, but I don't want to talk about that yet. I'll tell you about that some other day.

Because I want to tell you about my hair cut.

Myyyyyy hair cut.

After the DMV, I went to get my hair cut.

I went to a beauty school to get my hair cut today. This is not my first time doing so. But it is the first for this particular beauty school.

I went in for a tiny trim (maybe half an inch) and to get a few layers in front. See, I'm growing my bangs out and I wanted to add some layers to make the bangage less obvious. More on purpose. I was a little worried about the layers, but not at all about the trim. Easy peasy.

First bad sign: the lady assigned to cut my hair didn't speak much English. Now, I support her right to not speak much English. In fact, I support her right to not speak English at all. However. How to the ever lovin ever, how was I to communicate what I wanted when she didn't speak my language?

Side note: I got my hair cut when I lived in Paris. But I researched how to say what I wanted (and my French was fairly good by then) and even confirmed with my French teacher before going for the cut. And it turned out great.

So anyway, she barely understood me. When I introduced myself, she looked at me like I had three heads. Right.  So I was pretty nervous by this point.

She sits me down and I explain with many hand gestures and demonstrations what I want done. She nods and off we go to shampoo and condition my hair.

Where we spend the next sixty years.

I swear. How long does it take to wash hair? You can't fuck this part up! It's clean, woman. You did good. But my neck is killing me laying my head in a sink (Pee Ess, who designed those? There is no way someone thinks those are comfortable) for the last several decades. Let's move it along.

After we get back to her station, my hair is now grey and I explain, once again, what I want done.

She combs and clips up sections and pulls a tiny amount from the bottom and clips it. Then (and this was pretty cute), she shows me in her hand the amount of hair she's just clipped. "Like dis?" "Perfect," I say. Just half an inch.

Then she proceeds to take another 60 years to trim up the rest of the back of my hair. I wasn't complaining about that. She seemed methodical and I guess that's better if you want someone inexperienced to do a good job. Even if I was falling asleep and the top of my hair was completely dry by the time she got to it. Aaaaaaaand, it's not like I could see what she was doing back there.

Oh! Side note: at no point was this woman supervised. When I had my hair done at a beauty school in LA (granted, an Aveda school but still), supervisors kept a close watch.

Then she starts on the front. Where I explain what I want yet again. She starts doing a bowl-cutty type thing from my bangs down and I have to stop here and say I want more chunky layers. Which I suppose freaked her out. Because I couldn't get her to put in very many layers at all. I mean, it's like she barely did anything to the front.

But that's not the worst of it. Okay, so the layers are pretty invisible. But she didn't take a half inch off the bottom. No. Woman took like 3 inches. My hair is all gone! My hair that was getting long. That I'd been growing out for so long. Is all gone! I have shoulder length hair again. Goddammit.

By the time I'd figured this out, it was too late of course. How was I suppose to get my hair back? I can't. Exactly.

I will not be sharing pictures because I am so fucking unhappy with my hair right now.

Here's what it kinda looked like before 

(except I'm way cuter than Katie Holmes, obviously. I mean, who did her hair? It's awful):

And here's what it's like now:

Just kidding.

It's more like:

Oh Mandy Moore, I hate you hard. 

Moral of the story: you should always speak the same language as your hair stylist.