This was published 2 years ago
Two minutes with Danny Katz: When your hairdresser goes off piste
By Danny Katz
I’ve started going to a new hairdresser. Things were fine at first, but I’ve noticed she’s cutting my hair to look like hers. No matter how many times I mention that I don’t part it on that side, she still does it. This salon is convenient. How can I gently bring this to her attention?
C.M., Berwick, Vic
Credit: Simon Letch
A: There’s a famous piece of writing advice that goes “Write what you know” – and maybe this hairdresser sees herself as a hair-writer. Maybe she’s “cutting what she knows”, using her own personal hair-experiences to inform her hair-narrative (while avoiding overly purple styling or gratuitous shags). Actually, writers and hairdressers have a lot in common; they both spend their days contemplating human heads, they both dabble in layering and texture, and they both cut their own hair because they’re in low-paid professions and can’t afford a hairdresser.
So if that’s why your hairdresser is cutting your hair to look like hers, then it’s actually a compliment. You’re in the hands of a true artist who wants to find emotional honesty in her work rather than just plagiarise the latest, bestselling Gal Gadot side-part. Then again, you might be in the hands of a complete narcissist who thinks her hairstyle is amazing and just wants to share it with the world. A giveaway would be if she finished the cut, held up a mirror to the back of her head and said, “So … happy with that?”
Anyway, if you’re not thrilled about hair-twinning and don’t want to change salons, just guide your hairdresser through every step of the cut like a flight controller helping a passenger land a jumbo: “No, part on the other side … I repeat, part left! No, left, damnit, hard leffffft!!!!!”
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