Hairdressers. Why do you do it? Anyone else?

This is why I've cut my own hair for years!

I moved from the north east to the midlands ten years ago and had no idea where to go, went to the best rated one on google and turns out the girl who did my hair was a trainee but being trained by family (who were barbers) do be a hairdresser! I also have long, thick, brunette hair and she hacked the life out of it, thinned it so badly even though I asked her not to, she kept insisting my hair was too thick. She cut so much off and none of it was even the same length. I cried for days.

Never again. I bought myself some nice hairdressing scissors and do my own now and cut my mams for her too.

I think it says a lot about hair cutting that I have very fine hair and 50 percent of hairdressers will say it needs layers to add volume and 50 percent will say it needs no layers to add weight to the ends.

I can recommend a hairdresser who always listens and never ever scissor-happy "because I had it done to me once" and she is close to J10 of the M40. Very nice personality too.

Moving a lot before settling up here I suffered with maybe 30 different hairdressers chopping off too much, the desire to give my fine hair and fat face "a nice bob" surfaced many times often overrode my preference for a light trim, and it took two decades to get it shoulder length. Once I even had to grab the cutting wrist in a "cease or desist" move as she wouldn't listen. Cor. Why do they do it. Restraining techniques should not be necessary!! I remember I noticed once that after going round taking off the 1cm I asked for, a previous hairdresser then started all over again, round 2 if you like, which is nuts as it must take
twice as long.

OP did ask WHY...? All I could think was that being not naturally gorgeous, I do smile a lot which makes me look better and the longer I was in the chair (ie the more hair was coming off) the more I smiled and looked better so somehow taking off more hair got associated in the hairdresser's mind with improving my looks. It sounds barking but I used to puzzle over this so much too, and it's all I ever came up with.

Anyway please DM me if you would like the details of this hairdressing haven salon in North Oxfordshire.

The recommended hairdresser is close to J11 off the M40! Not J10 as I said, but actually not that far from J10 either. Feathers!

And what is with the obsession with bouffant hair drying? I like my hair dried straight. I don’t want ‘big’ hair with lots of volume. However, many times I say that, I leave with high volume hair. I have to go home and flatten it down. I look like I’m about to perform on a cruise ship.

I have found a hairdresser who knows my hair and cuts it well. If I ask for anything it won’t do well (like a fringe) she just refuses 😂 which is fine with me.

costs me an arm and a leg but I’ve been happy with my hair for nearly 20 years. I dread the day I have to change.

Here's one of my bad cuts
I cried a lot, then grew it while looking for another hairdresser. He gets that most people with wavy hair have had bad cuts and understood why I was so nervous
Second pic is the cut he gave me. I am NEVER leaving him

They also don't understand products - I need hard hold gel! Not serum or creams with no hold

I would rather go to a dentist than a hairdresser. Finding one of the former that will even take you on the waiting list and one of the latter that is any good is a mission.
For my hair it is a health and safety pony tail. I also hate, after telling hairdressers that I dont want anything that involves horribly complicated styling (because I am pants at styling, I have explained I use my straighteners for making sugar shapes for cakes and I don’t know where my hairdryer is), they then whack out the dryer, round brush and the whole shebang.
My hair never looks like it is styled that day ever again.

I have similar hair type to yours (mine's naturally wavy/curly - is yours?) and gave up with hairdressers a couple of years ago. I had everything from borderline rude comments about how "bushy" my hair is, to annoyance that it took longer than other clients, to people who genuinely tried quite hard to do a good job but just didn't know how to cut the texture.

Curly cuts from specialists were good but way too expensive for me.

I cut it myself now using the "double unicorn cut" method - its really quite easy, and looks good. Wouldn't work on straight hair though.

If you provide a photo and give clear instructions on how much you want cut off and they ignore your request, you are entitled to leave without paying and to give them a poor review on social media. If more people did this the bad hairdressers would soon be out of business or would need to buck up their ideas!

The trouble is, you don't always realise. I just had mine done after two years of hairdresser avoidance. I showed a picture, I said I wanted shaping round my face but no short layers overall. So she snips away, and then dries and straightens to death and it looks all right.
The style I asked for I have had before. It shouldn't need straightening at home, but I got some straighteners if I fancied doing it.

First wash since having it done yesterday and that's when I saw how short the layers were. Upshot is, I look like an old English sheepdog! Instead of just shaping round my face, she's made a layer as though she was giving me an angled bob. So what I have is basically two hairstyles. An angled bob top layer and the rest of my hair. It's awful. Fortunately, I can still put the angled bob bit up in a scrunchie, but the whole point of a fringe was to stop having to wear it up so much. At least the fringe is OK.

Complain to the manager?
I know it's two and a half weeks ago but it's causing you distress.
Speak to the manager and tell her what you asked for and when she asks why you didn't mention it on the day, tell her your 4 months post birth and quite frankly you were shell shocked.
Manager needs to have a word with their staff and I think you should get your money back.

Beautiful curls!

I am European. I no longer have a hairstyle since in the UK. (England). Sorry, but that's the case. So I'm going to let it grow.

I have a had this exact thing, more than once. There was a period about 10 years ago, when it seemed every hairdresser could only cut my hair a certain way and that involved taking a huge, angled chunk out of one side of hair at the front. It didn't matter what I asked for, or what photo I showed them, this was what I always got. I think it was supposed to enable the hair to flick back in a nice swish but all mine ever did was hang annoyingly in my face. Too long to be a useful fringe, not long enough to tie up or tuck behind my ear. Too deep cut and disconnected to relate to the rest of the hair on my head. Impossible to blow dry into any acceptable shape. So fucking annoying and it always took ages to grow out.

I've had a classic, all one length bob for a while now and it's such a relief to not be constantly fighting with weird layers in weird places that I didn't ask for. I feel like I am never going to want to change my hairstyle ever again. It's too risky. 😫

I ended up going to two places - one for a cut and one for colour. I live in Southeast Asia where they rarely know how to cut my very curly Caucasian hair. I found a person who specializes in curly hair and I like her cuts. However, despite having very simple colouring needs (just cover my roots to hide my grey in my brown hair), it just doesn't go well (either too light so the grey isn't covered or almost black). I found a place that does the colouring well but doesn't know curly hair. It means an extra visit every 3ish month, but it's what I've had to resort to.

Having front layers taken too far back was the absolute bane of my existence between about 1988-2004. If you asked for some layers at the front, hairdressers used to love cutting ALL the hair at the front right back to your ears. It was as if they were trying to make me look as un-sexy as possible.

Yes YES!!! That is exactly what I was just talking about.

The other thing that was impossible to avoid was that thing where they would cut some layers into the ends of collar length or shoulder length hair so that the hair went in in rounded bowl shape, then flicked up and out at the ends. It was so ubiquitous for about ten years, absolutely unavoidable unless you had a pixie cut. If you were over 35 and had any length on your hair at all you were getting those end flicks whether you liked it or not.

Then there were what I like to not-so-fondly remember as the Spaniel's Ears Years.

You'd ask for a gently inverted bob just to get some subtle shaping in at the back and and you'd come out with these annoying, razored little flappy bits over the ears, which were much longer than the rest of the bottom of the hair. and would catch the wind and flap around like floppy spaniels ears. Just awful.

Newnameneededforthisone I coildny agree more !!! So hit and miss with my hairdresser … either amazing or wtf !!! Why just why whem he can cut it well dies he get distracted at times and mess up my hair ???? This time he seem yo take umbridge that covered up my highlights that had hone soo white and overprocessed . I ask im to just even out the colour what dud he fo …… dyed it dark brown !!!! Eeegh

Glad I am not alone. Have had one stand out brilliant hairdresser and about two okay ones.
I agree with the person upthread who says they seem to have become worse. You end up with the haircut they can do rather than the one you want. And what they can do is limited.

Once back in the day I was given the Rachel from Friends haircut. It was ok but I don’t really have her hair type and my hairdresser at the time persuaded me it was the in cut. Same hairdresser (man) didn’t blow dry my hair, said it was better for it to be rough dried and dry naturally. There was nothing at all wrong with my hair he was just being lazy.

My current hairdresser is brilliant. I let my hair grow out a bit recently and it was ok but darker (highlights needed doing) and it needed cutting. As soon as I had it cut and coloured I felt much better. Similar with SIL. She’d grown her thick dark brown hair long but it just hung there. She got a just below the shoulders blunt cut. She’s got 2 young kids so it’s easier to manage this way. And several women I know with kids in their late 30s have gone from long/shoulder length hair to bobs (the ones you can style with waves). It shows off their faces and eyes.

BLUNT CUT. No texturising, no layers, no razor cutting. Friend with very thin hair had a wedding and the hairdresser savaged it so badly even they couldn’t style it on the day and kept using serum - it was a greasy mess by the end.

That’s what to ask for, I hate feathering too and I don’t think it looks particularly good on anybody unless you really have very thick hair and want it thinned and they leave longer lengths.
It’ll soon grow OP- 😢

Honestly I think the issue is going to any random hairdresser with a days notice. My hairdresser is absolutely amazing, BUT he's booked up 2-3 months in advance and doesn't take on new clients. In my opinion any hairdressers with next day slots will be shit, sorry! Appreciate this is because of childcare, but if you have a partner or any family support could they help you?

Very pleased for you! Keep hold of them!

Have had one brilliant hairdresser ever. A couple okay.

My hairdresser is peeved that I ask him to blowdry my hair rather than straighten it. If he straightens it I get 2 hours max and it just becomes lank and hanging and looks greasy. I end up washing it to liven it up. I don’t want a bouffanty blowdry just a bit of styling, my hair is low maintenance but no straightening by him (it’s ok when I straighten it, I don’t apply so much pressure), he over does it. I think straightening saves them time. It has made some of them lazy. We pay enough money for their services.