Hairstyle looks like a mushroom!

[Poppysball]

My hair badly needed cutting as it was overprocessed from too much colouring. My hair is quite thick and has a natural wave to it. I went in to a new hairdresser’s with some pictures from pinterest that I liked and that I thought looked like they would work on my hair type.

As always seems to be the case, the hairdresser decided to give me a nice short bob. With very long front bits hanging down like spaniels ears. She proceeded to blow dry it with a big round brush and then straighten it into an almost sleek looking bob which I knew I could never recreate. It looked ok but it’s not what the pictures were like that I showed.
I also am crap at blow drying my hair and don’t like it poker straight either. Why do they always want to dry it like that?

Anyway, I didn’t like it but thought I’d get used to it. It’s now 2 weeks on and I still don’t like it and I can’t get it to do anything. It looks all uneven with the big longer bits dangling at he front. It’s also goes out wide at the sides like a mushroom!! The slanty fringe that I asked for hangs by one limp strand over my eye.

I know all I can do is grow it but is there anything I can do in the meantime to lessen the mushroom effect?!

Why oh why do so many hairdressers not take any notice of the ideas you have? I feel like I’ve had this bloody mushroom bob cut one too many times now. Is it the standard cut for a hairdresser or what? Regardless of hair type?

I've tried the curly girl method (I've tried everything, pretty much) and it didn't work for me.

But this, from the article: "It takes me about an hour to diffuse fully."

Maybe that's why it didn't work for me?! That's double my current styling time, which I resent anyway!

Crikey - why would anyone convert to the CG method, if that's what it entails?

Any chance of a photo OP?

haha yemen I hear what you're saying but I wash my hair properly once a week now, vs every other day, it just doesn't seem to need it now that it's not in a cycle of stripping oils out and putting silicones on. I dampen it every morning, and just leave it to air dry. on wash days I diffuse for about half an hour, get bored and let it air dry the rest of the way. it doesn't have to be a whole high maintenance thing, it can be as much or as little as you like really.

I’m not really keen to post a photo as don’t want to out myself. I realise this isn’t very helpful but I’m so self conscious about my looks right now. Thank you everyone for the suggestions and the funny comments. They have actually cheered me up no end and made me see the funny side!

it can be as much or as little as you like really.

I'd love to think that was true! But having tired it, it's just as much faff.

If I were to do 'as little as I liked', and then when out into the elements, guaranteed I'd end up with the usual fluffy, frizzy, non-curly, non-wavy, non-straight, witchy mess.

Not like the lady in the article, at any rate!!

My hair will mushroom if given half the chance. My hairdresser used to cut it into sleek bobs, but I could never replicate it at home so she has now refused to cut it above shoulder length and it has some layers around the face. I've found a way of keeping it sleek now. I dry it as normal, then straighten it after spraying the sections with frizz control spray. It doesn't take very long to do and stays looking like human hair for several days before it's washed again.

Crikey - why would anyone convert to the CG method, if that's what it entails

I do curly girl, I don’t always diffuse. I’ve got a tiny baby right now and just leaving it to air dry.

Proper laughing out loud reading this!! I have quite fine hair but a lot of it. I was 13 when I wanted my waist length hair cut in to a blonde bob just like Reese Witherspoon had at the time! I then spent the whole of Year 8 and 9 being called Mushroom Head.

Sorry you’ve been mushroomed OP it sucks but my god I’m sure these responses have cheered you up no end 😂

They really have hazandduck! Also nice to know I am not alone! It seems that many of us have been ‘mushroomed’.

Just wondering out of interest, what other way is there for a hairdresser to blowdry hair apart from using those big round brushes? I have actually never had a blowdry that hasn’t involved those brushes. What should you ask them to do if you don’t want that bouffant look or the straighteners? What else is there? I just dry mine with a normal brush but I would not call it blow dried, usually more like a birds nest!😆

OP.. I'm not joking. Get yourself a decent (male) hairdresser. Literally never have my hair drived like this!

Male hairdressers do seem better I agree. However the last one I had dried my hair like a fluffy frizzy mess. And that was in a £££ salon.

I asked for my hair to be cut to my shoulders and I wanted to stay blonde... somehow I was railroaded into this....

I want my blonde back badly.. I cant dry it that smoothly so i have a washed out copper triangle on my head. I've been proper mushroomed..

Oh blimey, I haven't laughed so much in ages

Not at you starburst, crosspost!

@SeventhWave ah dont worry about. I've been serving people all day who haven't held back on what they think of it Haha x

Oh OP, I've taken the exact same picture into the hairdressers several times and also emerged with a mushroom. I can't bring myself to try the Curly Girl method because having unwashed hair makes me itch all over. I too wish it was the 80s again. I'd be a fashionista!

The problem with CG is that you have to invest in a load of new product specifically for it, with a haircut that hasn't been cut for it, spend an hour diffusing and then you may not even like it. You're (well, I am) seriously unlikely to end up with stunning, velvety, cascading curls.

Re: the barrel brushes: before the trend for big, bouncy blow dries started (I blame the Duchess of Cambridge myself ), hairdressers always seemed to use a paddle brush, which gave a flatter, sleeker finish.

Every. Single. Character. ran straight to me and danced and hugged me. Every single character.

If I had a baby [at all] on my chest, I genuinely would have woken it up at that!

The best advice I was given for my thick wavy hair was to use a hairdresser with thick, wavy hair.

The best thing they do when drying with a barrel brush is dry your fringe with it. The fringe you never asked for. And then because the big barrel brush has been used to dry it your fringe hovers three inches in front of your eyebrows all the way home.

I've got thick hair and have been mushroomed twice both by hairdressers in very upmarket salons too. I'll tell you what I was told, hopefully it helps!

The first mushroom was a short bob, to be fair the hairdresser warned me my hair could mushroom and puff out. He claimed it was because hair has a natural way of growing in a kind of "C" shape upto your shoulders. He said if you cut the C in half, your hair will pile up at the most protuding part hence the mushroom effect.

Only way to get rid he said was to regrow to a longer length or straighten your shortened locks back into a C shape with extensive straightener use(to reshape hair he said!)

Second mushroom was a layered haircut, hairdresser just cut a load off one layer causing one mushroom layer and one rat's tail layer underneath.

I went to another salon to fix it a week later and a wonderful hairdresser immediately saw the problem and said the layers needed "graduating". She cut a lot more layers into my hair that were more even which rectified the problem.

Ha ha this made me laugh. I am lucky enough to have a longstanding hairdresser who understands that my hair does not need any additional volume added. Currently I have a longer lego style bob. This is the style my hair migrates to no matter what cut I have. A good few years ago I had short hair and had it blow dried by my Aunts hairdresser for her wedding. I kid you not I looked like Margaret Thatcher. She put so much product on it I couldn't squash it down by any means. My entire family spent the whole day laughing at me!!!

Oh god I feel your pain OP, along with so many others on this thread! And it has made me laugh, but also made me realise for the hundredth time just how hopeless my hair is!! It's the absolute bane of my life. There's so much of it, I sport the mushroom look if it's any shorter than just below shoulders. So I need to keep it long. But that it itself is such a faff as it only looks presentable if I straighten it. I honestly plan my days around my hair, for example, if I'm having a night out I'd need to wash my hair two nights before (not enough time to wash it in the morning) so that it's sitting ok for my night out. This takes a good 1.5 hours so I need to 'book' it into my diary I've considered the curly girl method, but it seems like it would take quite some time for the hair to actually start to really look curly and I work in a professional role where I just wouldn't be able to rock up looking like Tina Turner for the many months it would take before it looks ok! Honestly if there was one thing I could change about myself (and there are so many things I could choose from) it would be my hair.

Thick wavy/curly and frizz prone hair definitely seems to need a certain hairdresser.

Thankfully I found my amazing hair dresser at 13yrs old and have gone to him ever since. He can do pretty much any style with my hair and it'll look great.

Prior to that though I had some awful experiences - other hair dressers could only make my hair look the same length on both sides when it was straightened (time consuming and it never lasts the day because my hair wants to have waves and curls), so later in the day or if I didn't have time to blow dry and straighten it, it looked like each side was a different length. Long it went like "hagrid" hair and short it went into a mushroom. Layers looked even worse. I spent the first 2yrs of secondary school wishing I was invisible and feeling very ugly.

Then I found my amazing hairdresser. He couldn't understand how the others had got it so wrong. When he cuts it, it looks equal length on both sides regardless of whether I straighten it, curl it or let it dry naturally into its wavy curls. He's given me various different styles over the last 16years, including a bob, and not one has made me look mushroomy or hagrid like.

He also saved my 3yr old dd's hair after DD cut huge chunks out of it. My mom took her to a closer hairdresser who was saying the only thing to be done was a super short very boy like cut. I said no way. Took her to my hairdresser who managed to turn it into a nice bob and blend all the missing sections so they were no longer noticeable - I wish I'd have taken a before and after picture because it truly looked like a miracle transformation - I really don't know how he did it. He's amazing.