I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve gotten my hair done professionally. First, my hair is pretty easy to manage, it’s long and thick with a looser curl pattern. Until the age of 14 I only wore my hair in ponytails. I got my first haircut, in the form of cutting my own bangs, freshman year of high school. I did an okay job. From there, I continued to cut, color, and style my own hair, mostly out of necessity. I didn’t have the money to get my hair done professionally, so I learned to do it myself. I found that doing my own hair was easy!
When I was 18 I went to a hair salon, as a birthday gift. It was a disaster. The stylist cut over a foot of my hair off without me knowing. I vowed never to visit a salon again. Fast forward to 2 years ago. It was my birthday and I wanted to change my hair color. I went to one of the highest rated salons in Portland, where they specialized in color. I should have known that being the best in Portland doesn’t equate to being qualified to do my hair, more than likely it means they are very experienced with White hair. Sigh. Long story short, the stylist ruined my curl pattern. I paid over $250 for someone to ruin my hair.
A year later I went to a curly hair salon for my next birthday and paid $200 for a haircut. This salon did not ruin my hair. They taught me how to take better care of my hair, get better curl definition etc. I think it was worth the money I paid, mostly for the educational component. However, I haven’t been back. It’s just something about paying so much money for a service I can do myself that doesn’t sit well with me. I know that the people at the curly hair salon can cut my hair better than I can, but with time I believe in my ability to improve my craft. If I keep outsourcing this task to someone else, I’ll never improve. Instead, I choose to do everything in house. No one can tell the difference.
Cutting and coloring my own hair is a risk. I can mess it up. But, in the grand scheme of things I know no one is looking at me or my hair as closely as I am. I am not a main character in most people’s lives, I’m not even an extra, so why spend hundreds of dollars for my hair to look at best slightly better? Those close to me don’t care that the balayage coloring in my hair makes new growth blend better with my colored hair. They don’t notice at all.
I have this weird feeling everytime I leave a nail salon, hair salon, or massage therapist’s office. When everything goes well, I feel slight regret. When things go wrong (bad customer service, high prices, subpar outcome) I feel overwhelming regret. I hate wasting money, so I’m done wasting money on hair services I can perform myself. Yesterday I cut my own hair and it came out great! I got 2 compliments today. Curly hair girls can do DIY cuts too, Youtube is our friend. I’m not swearing off hair services altogether. Eventually I may want a really short pixie cut. For that I may head to a professional, I may not. I will definitely be intentional about future hair service spending so that I don’t feel regret as soon as I step outside of the salon.
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