Hairdressers. Why do you do it? Anyone else?

I literally love my hairdresser. I have very fine hair and a sensitive scalp which was so inflamed before I met her. She's so knowledgeable of all hair types and scalp types. she is incredibly well qualified, stays up to date with new research and training. Always excited to share new schools of thought from different courses she attends. She's a lone hairdresser but with her own salon. Feels like luxury.

I used to have a side fringe, and I would really struggle getting someone good at cutting it. I always used to say I don't want it in my eyes. I do sport, drive, work on a computer, I don't want to be flicking it out my face all the time. Literally every hairdresser ignored me and would only cut these long, sweeping fringes. I eventually grew it out as I couldn't maintain it and was going back every 3 weeks.

You need to find a good hairdresser and be a regular client.

It sounds like you're going to a different person every time?

I see mine every 6 weeks and it's always cut the same way we've agreed on that works for me.

I know finding that person can be hard though.

I've been to a hairdresser twice since I was about 14. At 14 a hairdresser sliced a sliver off the top of my ear - that put me off for years.

Then the '70s came along with big curly hair... so I got tempted by a perm. I think it was left in too long - half of my long thick hair fell out and it grew back frizzy and never as thick.

A decade later I got tempted again- by highlights this time. I admit it looked good - but the hours of pain having my hair yanked through tiny holes in a rubber cap!

Never again. 🤕

At my last appt she gave me these weird curls ... walked out looking like Annie. I'm 56 ffs.

@Roomforapony

Oh my goodness! That is simultaneously hilarious (sorry!) and horrifying!

You need to go to a good stylist who has had proper training in a good teaching salon. Not someone who has done a short hairdressing course.

Not only is it difficult to find someone with specific training (most salons don’t list their staff and their qualifications) but qualification is no barrier to a dreadful haircut.

Interesting that not one hair stylist has been on this thread to defend their styling…

This is me! so much so I only go once or twice a year as I can't cope with paying for the disappointment.
and my 11 year old son has just started experiencing the same, we are on the 5th barbers now as the last few cuts have made him cry. He searches for styles online, shows what we wants then gets the same cut as he always gets which is nothing like it! so frustrating. He's asked recently if we could go to London to get his hair cut, we live in Wales! hmmmm, No!

I pay £110 for a curly cut now as apparently standard hairdressers can't cut curly hair or style it (I need gel, and lots of it!)
It's the only time I've come out and not immediately tied it up

My hairdresser is absolutely great. She has never given me a bad haircut - she's very collaborative and also honest about what will work and what won't. She is fast and I don't pay more than £70 for cut & full head of highlights, and she'll dry and curl my hair just for the fun of it. £12 for a trim! I'll never go anywhere else now. She's completely healed me from bad hairdressers. Good hairdressers do exist!

In my 40 odd years with my hairdresser I've been through several house moves. When I began I lived on the same street. I live 12 miles away now. Wouldn't dream of moving unless she retires.

Basic dry cut for me at an 'old school' place that doesn't really cater for people wanting modern techniques. It's not the full on glam experience but I get the cut I want at a decent price.

You need to go to a good stylist who has had proper training in a good teaching salon. Not someone who has done a short hairdressing course.

My Hairdresser is absolutely amazing but he trained in one of the big west end salons and has been working for 30 years.

a good hairdresser can also blowdry and couldn’t need to go anywhere near straighteners. You can tell if you’re getting a good blowdry within 5 seconds of them starting. If they’re tickling your head you can guarantee it will be rubbish. If they have their big round brush, pulling hard and look like they’re having an arm workout you’re on to a winner.

look for salons which deal with Greek / Indian / Middle Eastern hair. They’re always do the best blowdry as they are often dealing with thick frizzy hair that has a mind of its own

I've been going to the same small hairdresser for over 40 years and have never ended up with a result I wasn't happy with. I still don't understand why people pay up when someone does their hair in a way they don't like.

I fucking hate it. I cut and dye my own these days. At least it saves me having to answer a load of questions about my life, put up with someone scratcing my head with a 'massage' and sending me out looking like a pineapple.

I resent going to the hairdresser as I end up paying about £50-60 for a trim basically (I’m very low maintenance as far as hair goes).

I have to sit through a blow dry because it’s mandatory for some reason. Usually they try to iron my hair with those straightening tongs but I tell them not to bother.

None have every mucked up the cut thankfully though I remember one girl who cut my hair at the top and side but left the back because I mentioned I was growing it and she thought I would want to “keep the length”. I had to carefully explain it was not the early 90s anymore and i did not want a mullet.

I hate going too. But my hair is very thin and doesn't grow evenly, so I have to go or I look like a tramp! What I resent is having to pay the same full price for a cut that takes 5 minutes and a blow dry that is often just a quick waft.

I tried growing it long during lockdown, and it looks truly awful.

When I last went to get my hair coloured, I'd grown out a ton of dark roots against my home-done brassy blonde and asked for lowlights and generally to blend the roots in a bit so the overall effect was brown with blonde ombre/grown out balayage.

She gave me a full head of highlights so bleached and ashy I looked like I had fully silver grey hair, then put a strange reddy brown colour over the root that now looks like a weird band of colour around my head as it's completely different to my natural hair colour.

I go to students. They're so careful and take their time and are totally supervised...they can't do anything that they want.

Plus it's half the price. Just takes a bit longer

The thing is, you have to be alert as if your life is in danger and watch out like a hawk as soon as you walk in.
Then, after paying and saying your niceties, you might actually be reasonably satisfied with the result.
I have been trimming my hair at home, unfortunately due to my age hair is fine and thin
and I just need the qualified help now.
😐

I say cut it all one length no layers etc

It's worked every time and the cut has been just that except once. I went back and got it changed

It was a hairdresser who wouldn't listen who made me decide not to bother with any more colours, highlights, blow dries - whatever. I was in my early 60s and was still dying my hair to conceal the grey. I used to have it dyed and then highlights on top - took ages!

I couldn't go to my usual hairdresser as she was on holiday, so I went to another one and explained VERY carefully and clearly that yes, I know that my original colour was a darkish brown, but my hair was only that colour at the back. On top it was grey and thinning. If if were dyed my original colour, not only would it have to be topped up every five minutes, but it makes it look even thinner on the top. She gave me some colours to choose from and I chose the lightest - she tried to persuade me, but I explained again.

I came out with hair the same colour it had been in my 20s - it looked lovely for literally a week. I was also charged an extra £15 for having it blow dried - which I had assumed would have been included in the price, which was a lot higher than I had been used to paying.

I decided that as I was early sixties, it was OK to have grey hair - men can do this and be called silver foxes, so I would too. I went cold turkey and just grew it out. I went to my original hairdresser and just had a dry cut - no layers (makes it look thinner). It looked bloody awful for 18 months but then, it looked OK.

Now I have a hairdresser come to my house to cut my hair - and my adult sons usually tag along too and have theirs cut (haha bank of Mum and saves them using up their Saturday morning). It is cheaper for me to have all three of us done than it used to be for me to have all that colouring etc. Life is so much simpler.

I'm in Swansea too and my hairdresser who I visit once a year cuts (trims) my hair exactly how I want it. Sometimes I decide that she can take a bit more off but she respects my wishes. I think if I said I wanted something different to my long, one length, greying hair she would come over all giddy and wet herself with excitement.

As a man I've had same in barbers and unisex hairdressers.

Ask them to use a No4 clipper around back of head and behind ears then scissor cut the rest and the muppet uses the clipper halfway up my scalp. Need three goes to get enough off the top.

Since the pandemic I do it myself with clippers. Much shorter than it used to be but I older and there's less coverage overall.

I hear you . I have very very very thick hair down as far as my bra strap. Hairdressers are not allowed to put layers in full stop !!!!
When layers are in my hair, it actually separates and looks like i have two heads of hair, Been going to my current hairdresser for 15 years now, its a pain as she is about a 2 hour drive, but no one nearer to home has been able to cut it right for me. So now i rebook every 4 months with her and take to the day off work or make a day out of it when its a weekend. If she not able to do it they ring me to reschedule - i wont take anyone else and they know it. Its not cheap about 240e including the colour and it takes like 3 or 4 hours, she does think it out but that works for my hair , makes it easy to manage a bit and takes some weight off, i never leave unhappy. She no longer takes on any new clients now wither only works set days, a friend of mine was going to her but stopped and now she cant get back in with her. They are so hard to find but once you find them don't loose them