Beauty Confessionals: I cut my own baby bangs for years and it went as badly as you’d imagine
It’s happening again. I can feel it. This time I fear I won’t be strong enough to resist. The call is all too familiar to me now and I know it’s only a matter of time before I’m watching myself, as if from outside my body, frothing at the mouth, eyes wild, wielding a pair of blunt kitchen scissors like a madwoman, ready to…
…the joke is that I’m a werewolf, guys. A baby bangs werewolf.
I don’t know what my problem is. Everything about them is wrong for me: they’re hard to pull off, not flattering on my round face, evoke an overly-kicky vintage vibe I can’t really justify with my clothing choices, and require massive upkeep. Oh, and they’re incredibly hard to cut. And yet, I’ve been trying to make baby bangs work for me at least once or twice a year since 2011.
It all began in 2009, when a cooler-than-me friend offered to cut me blunt bangs during a rainy study abroad night in England. I’d wanted bangs forever, but my various hairdressers had cautioned against it. Unflattering, they suggested, “a lot of look.” “That’s bullshit,” said Laurel, a noted bangs-haver herself, wielding her scissors and promptly rendering me be-banged.
The bangs looked great. I’d never felt so powerful, so Me. Laurel gave me a few more trims before we parted ways at the end of our semester, and I tentatively took up the home trimming torch on my own when I started the new semester on home turf. For a while, I trimmed conservatively, following my brow line and trying to keep things as straight as possible. It went well—too well. I went shorter and shorter. I got into Bettie Page (dangerous) the “Telephone” video game out (oh no), and went through an Amelie phase (DING DING DING). As the final nail in the coffin, I moved back to England.
I was doomed as soon as I got off the plane and bought a cape. I kept trimming shorter and shorter bangs that got wonkier and wonkier as they climbed my sizeable forehead (the purpose of the bangs was to balance this out, but I had completely lost the plot at this point). Then, one day, I did this. Just a casual Spock bang, done in a dorm room mirror. Fine. Sure. It took forever to grow out.
Rough stuff. A rational person would learn their lesson from looking at this photo, from examining this pathetic ginger half-moon side-by-side with someone’s perfectly normal fringe. But did I learn? Ho-ohhh no. No no, friends.
I went straight to a hairdresser and let them do this. What you are looking at is a combination dip-dye/BLEACHED BABY BANGS. A woman named Sapphire is responsible for this. To her credit, I think this would be a very cool look on the right person, and I truly believe that when she gently asked “Can I… try something?” she had only the best intentions. And yet. AND YET.
These took, as you might imagine, even longer to grow out, with the added bonus that when my bleached ends were up in a ponytail I looked like a moon child.
It was, ironically, a dark time. These days I have learned my lesson: I do not cut my own bangs, and I let my hairdresser—the wonderful Melody Krauze at Quinn West—determine the appropriate length for my fringe. She knows what’s best for me, and I trust her. Do I occasionally look longingly at girls with weird asymmetrical bobs and tiny little bangs so short they could basically be babyhairs? Sure. Was Beyonce‘s recent Parisian baby bang revelation a very hard time for me? Absolutely. But as in the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, so in hair: know your limit, play within it. #RIPbabybangs2014
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It's happening again. I can feel it. This time I fear I won't be strong enough to resist. The call is all too familiar to me now and I know it's only a matter of time before I'm watching myself, as if from outside my body, frothing at the mouth, eyes wild, wielding a pair of blunt kitchen scissors like a madwoman, ready to...
...the joke is that I'm a werewolf, guys. A baby bangs werewolf.
I don't know what my problem is. Everything about them is wrong for me: they're hard to pull off, not flattering on my round face, evoke an overly-kicky vintage vibe I can't really justify with my clothing choices, and require massive upkeep. Oh, and they're incredibly hard to cut. And yet, I've been trying to make baby bangs work for me at least once or twice a year since 2011.
It all began in 2009, when a cooler-than-me friend offered to cut me blunt bangs during a rainy study abroad night in England. I'd wanted bangs forever, but my various hairdressers had cautioned against it. Unflattering, they suggested, "a lot of look." "That's bullshit," said Laurel, a noted bangs-haver herself, wielding her scissors and promptly rendering me be-banged.
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The bangs looked great. I'd never felt so powerful, so Me. Laurel gave me a few more trims before we parted ways at the end of our semester, and I tentatively took up the home trimming torch on my own when I started the new semester on home turf. For a while, I trimmed conservatively, following my brow line and trying to keep things as straight as possible. It went well—too well. I went shorter and shorter. I got into Bettie Page (dangerous) the "Telephone" video game out (oh no), and went through an Amelie phase (DING DING DING). As the final nail in the coffin, I moved back to England.
I was doomed as soon as I got off the plane and bought a cape. I kept trimming shorter and shorter bangs that got wonkier and wonkier as they climbed my sizeable forehead (the purpose of the bangs was to balance this out, but I had completely lost the plot at this point). Then, one day, I did this. Just a casual Spock bang, done in a dorm room mirror. Fine. Sure. It took forever to grow out.
Rough stuff. A rational person would learn their lesson from looking at this photo, from examining this pathetic ginger half-moon side-by-side with someone's perfectly normal fringe. But did I learn? Ho-ohhh no. No no, friends.
I went straight to a hairdresser and let them do this. What you are looking at is a combination dip-dye/BLEACHED BABY BANGS. A woman named Sapphire is responsible for this. To her credit, I think this would be a very cool look on the right person, and I truly believe that when she gently asked "Can I... try something?" she had only the best intentions. And yet. AND YET.
These took, as you might imagine, even longer to grow out, with the added bonus that when my bleached ends were up in a ponytail I looked like a moon child.
It was, ironically, a dark time. These days I have learned my lesson: I do not cut my own bangs, and I let my hairdresser—the wonderful Melody Krauze at Quinn West—determine the appropriate length for my fringe. She knows what's best for me, and I trust her. Do I occasionally look longingly at girls with weird asymmetrical bobs and tiny little bangs so short they could basically be babyhairs? Sure. Was Beyonce's recent Parisian baby bang revelation a very hard time for me? Absolutely. But as in the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, so in hair: know your limit, play within it. #RIPbabybangs2014){kind=link}