Confession: I Cut My Own Hair

I recently saw a profile of famed hairdresser, Frederic Fekkai, on CBS Sunday Morning.  What caught my attention was not his success, fame, family, or debonair handsomeness; it was the fact that he charges $750 for a haircut.  A bloody haircut!  I just had to laugh because despite all the luxurious surroundings in his salon, it all came down to the simple act of cutting human keratin strands with a pair of scissors.  Not really rocket science.

I started cutting my own hair a few years ago out of mere frustration.  I have long, wavy, thick hair that I like to have cut in a blunt cut.  The problem that I was having with any hairdresser was that they always talked me into anything other than a blunt cut.  So, I had a lot of long layers done, and horror upon horror, the hideous dreaded razor trimmed cut.  Long layers do not work for me; I have just enough curl to make the ends flip out weirdly.  And the razor cut is just too devastating!  The fried, frizzled ends certainly are not anything I want to pay good money for and have to live with.

I could take the frazzled ends no longer, and one day I just took my very sharp hair cutting scissors (I’ve been trimming my own bangs for years) and started cutting a clean even slice through the ends of my hair.  Gone were the  crispy, frazzled, layered, razored ends.  What emerged was sharp, thick, blunt ends…and man, did it feel good!  It was actually very empowering; no more dictates from hairdressers, I could do it myself!

When I mention this to people, it’s actually kind of surprising that there are other people who also cut their own hair.  Nobody really broadcasts this too much though.  It is like there is this kind unspoken “rule” in polite society than one must always go to a hairdresser or barber to get their hair cut.  I fell for this “rule” a long time.  Then I finally decided that since I was a do-it-yourselfer in so many other areas of my life, I would add one more experiment to my repertoire.

You can imagine my amazement, after receiving the latest issue of Vogue, I read about an extremely successful woman who actually admitted, yes, in Vogue, that she is her own hairdresser.  Natalie Massenet, who has made $76 million as founder and chairman of Net-a-Porter, not only does her own blow-outs but cuts her own hair.  I found this confession the most incredible thing about the entire article.  And she was proud of it too!  I feel a certain kinship with Natalie; like here we are with this one thing in common, blow-drying and cutting our own hair in our own worlds, hers decidedly more opulent that mine.

I am here to say “go for it!”.  Be brave, pick up those scissors and just cut!  It is not rocket science…and, it will always grow back.

~Marilyn