The Big Chop

I've been so, so, SO sick of my hair for the past few months.  It's length was annoying me and I'm leaving a hair trail everywhere I go.  Also, I walk to work everyday and it's not particularly pleasant to arrive with wind-knotted hair.  Smee's been pretty good at pulling apart the knots which form on a seemingly daily basis.  With no events coming up requiring me to keep my hair long (bridesmaid duties over) I decided I was due for a big chop.  

I booked an appointment with Ticro, the only hairdressers I've been to in London.  Some people don't like how the stylists have a tendency to cut a lot of layers into your hair but I've never had a bad haircut from them.  I requested Yuki who has cut my hair on two previous occasions.  Her English isn't too bad, she understands what you ask for and she's quite sweet.  Her own haircut with the extreme short fringe is a bit suspect. 

I searched around on the net and found Beauty Box, a super-useful Japanese hair cut website.  After awhile all the photographs start looking a bit similar and more or less a variation of the basic fringe and layers.  I settled on this haircut and with the notes in Japanese, I figured it would be a win-win situation because Yuki would actually understand it.

There is nothing special about this cut.  The more I looked at it the more I realised this was the same cut I had in 1998 and again in 2004.  My hair is very fine and I know it would never look like the above unless I blow-dry the shit out of it.  But I think I was drawn to the cut because the model is pretty hehehe.  (Although Moo thinks she looks vacant.)  Too bad face transplants are not included in the salon service.

So here are the before and after shots:

Gone is the glamazon hair!  I have to admit I did feel less 'girly' (maybe more pathetically so, 'less pretty') after walking out of the salon.  I think I look older, but I've been told I look younger.  But the sure thing is, it does look just like me circa 2004 and circa 1998.  Sure, I don't look anything like the photo (who seriously expects to look anything like the hair model?) but I could tell that Yuki did her job well and cut the style I requested.  I'm far from loving the less-girly feeling I'm experiencing (I'm sure that is a just a passing phase) but I do love the light-weightedness of  losing the scraggly locks. 

Out of curiosity, I used Google Translate to interpret the Japanese instructions and this is what I got:

Air Perm 
Are the latest permanent longing for the kindness that everyone have a nice texture

Length - Medium

Cut - Transformed into a nice dry cutting heavy 

Colour - Soft color memorandum Me

Perm - The larger bristles to get permanent curls bouncing in the natural body like a soft one Carl Deru 

Set - BIG easy Doraihandodora roughly nuances of wax they finish the natural curl

Point - A-line silhouette

Ok, so a lot of the above is just gibbly-dook but the one thing I gleamed from above was AIR PERM.  (Here is someone's experience in English.)  I think it's just the same thing as a digital perm, though not terribly sure.  Well of course my hair will never look like the model's unless I get a perm!  I re-analysed the picture of the model and concluded that yep, her hair does look kinda fine, much like my own!  Well, I cbb getting a perm (for now) so I'll just leave my tresses as they are.