Shop assistant told me I have a big face. Don't know whether to laugh or cry...

[laidbackneko]

I was shopping for a wedding hat when she came over to help me.

First of all she told me that the one I was trying on "made me look like a granny. Please don't take offence" then said I needed a bigger hat because I "have a big round face. Again, please don't take offence."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. But she did give me good advice and the hat I left with was more stylish than the one I was trying on when she found me.

But I can't stop thinking about what she said. AIBU to be a bit offended by her comments?

I was once told my hair 'wouldn't be able to cope' with layers. My hair is clearly of a nervous disposition.

I got measured for a Stetson in Texas and they commented on my huge head . Turns out I have the same measurements as John Wayne so I'm in good company (if I was 6'4")

@ 'break up the monotony of my face'

That's not even a back-handed compliment.

It reminds me of going to the beautician and she kept commenting on my sparse brows. I said tentatively that I thought they fairly normal and probably just needed shaping and she just kept saying 'yes but not too much off, they're so sparse, you want to be careful with such sparse brows' etc.

She did an okay job but I go elsewhere now. I don't pay money to be made to recognise my flaws feel shit.

I have a small head. The only hats which generally fit me are children's 😩

I would love to have a bigger head.

But there's nothing which can be about a head size.

And why should it matter anyway?

But yes, the shop assistant needs to find alternative ways to phrase things. Some people can be very sensitive, so it's best to consider what you say before saying it. Especially in a customer facing role.

Maybe Millinery brings out the bad in people...I was once measured by a proper milliner for a play and she said...and I quote "Yours is quite the largest female head I've EVER come across...it's MASSIVE!:

Millinery Villainery.

Great name for a shop!

Yes Bunty! And you go there and they're just AWFUL to you! But you leave looking fabulous!

balloonslayer your dad sounds like my FIL!

"you work on commission, right? big mistake. big. HUGE. I have to go shopping now...."

Well if we are talking about rude beauty therapists/hairdressers i've had some humdingers (i have shared them on MN before)

Once a hairdresser kept banging on about giving my naturally dark hair highlights and i kept politely saying no, and she was getting huffy. Then she asked if i wanted to use the sunbed or have a spray tan. I said no. on she went about how much better i'd look with a tan. I again refused. Then she snapped 'Look, i'm just trying to make you look less witchy'

Other times it has been waxers telling me how grotesquely hairy i am and that i should go to the drs (i realise i'm not really selling myself here!). I got quite upset once and actually complained. It's not really what you want to hear when you are starkers and legz akimbo feeling vulnerable!

MrsKoala, if you are the poster who posted a photo of a toy car stuck in her hair (sorry if you're not, your name rings a bell) then you are not in the least witchy

I, on the other hand, clearly am witchy, as I was singled out as "the witch" a this interactive London Dungeon experience thing, and my (best!) friend said, 'greenwood, if they're going to pick someone who looks like a witch, they're going to pick you, because of all your long black hair'

*I suppose I was going through my dark red lipstick phase at the time, as well.

It's very deflating when you feel you've been insulted. I think I would have joked with her that yes normally I have to go sideways through doors as my face is so gigantic. She was tactless but helpful so you're feelings are a little challenged. A shop assistant once looked at me aghast saying she couldn't believe I was my daughter's mother, because where did my daughter get her wonderful thick head of her from? I have very fine hair and my kids have their dad's healthy mop. I felt so unattractive and bald.

Am I the only one old enough to have been immediately reminded of the South African character in The Fast Show (played by Arabella Weir) when I read the OP?

A hairdresser once refused to give me the haircut I wanted because apparently my head is a weird shape. I went and had it done somewhere else, and I don't think anybody fainted at the sight of my weird head afterwards.

It's a pity your shop assistant thinks "please don't take offence" is a good subsitute for actual tact and discretion.

Yes, Greenwood that was me.

peridot yes, I remember; she used to be vile then say "no offence!" Victoria Wood had a lovely sketch when the beautician (Julie Walters?) looked at her pores which VW had described as "ajar" and said "that's not a complexion, more of a doily."
am very old

I'd have punched a whole through the hat, jammed it over her head and told the management to take it out of her wages.

I think she was trying to sell you a hat that would suit you. And it sounds like she did.

I'm sure she meant your face was big in proportion to your head or hight or something like that. Not in relation to the species!

It doesn't sound very flattering though "big, round face". I would have said "For your bone structure I would go with this style" or something like that.

When I showed the hairdresser a photo of the hair cut I wanted, she laughed and said, 'Let's be realistic'.

At my very first bra fitting, the very elderly lady assistant shouted through the curtain, to my mother who was waiting just inches away on the other side, "One breast is bigger than the other, like yours!"

We'd never before been in the shop, so she had no intimate knowledge of my mother's breasts (which are averagely symmetrical, like mine ). Luckily we could laugh about it, and we still say "I like that top on you, it disguises the big one."