I am Groot.

Ponytail. I have long straight hair. If I feel the need for short I just ponytail it. Or bun it. Or monster clip it. I admire all of you who braved the hair cutters. I have had enuf of hair cutting for a lifetime. Especially at $40 and up.

I finally got my hair down to my bra strap in the back but it was flat and straight. I wanted some body so I thought perm. I have had perms before, no problem. The perm didn’t go so well. Some hair was curly some not. $200

so I go to a highly recommended high end salon to fix. Re-permed. Looked like a rats nest. One of the other workers at salon asked if I liked the results. You can tell he didn’t approved. I got a $300 rats nest hairdo.

got tired of rats nest and hair chopped off - pixie length. As it grew out I got brave again to try perm again but I also added color. I looked like orphan Annie. At least only $100

hubby had stroke, life stressful, scalp started to some weird itchy dandruff thing. So I personally grab the dog electric shears and shaved 1/2” close to the scalp. Loved it! Very easy and as it grew out it grew out even. Changed shampoo products. Scalp heal. Hair shoulder length now and happy.

probably will never have anyone else work on my hair again.

Baby Groot is sooo cute I can't say the same with my hair and baby Groot's face.

Yeah it will grow and I have learned my lesson.

Thanks everyone who responded with your own stories. Makes me feel not so alone.

🤗👍

During covid I couldn't see my long time hairdresser of 35 years so I handed my sig-other a pair of scissors. Since my hair was all one length and half way down my back I figured not much harm would be done cutting straight across. Those scissors never sounded so LOUD.....

Actually it turned out pretty good. I usually only have it cut once or twice a year, and I am still handing the scissors to sig-other. Heck, it is saving me $65 a cut.

At one time I had the Dorothy Hamill cut and cried all the way home. It wasn't a good idea going from long hair to that short of a cut. I wanted to hide under a grocery bag. Eventually I got use to it.

I didn't visit a salon or mani/pedi place during my caregiving years. I remember that distinctly because I had done that kind of self-care before caregiving, and it was a metric of how I had put myself in last place and the depression of the caregiving years. At one point, I cut out tangled locks because I had let myself go to where I wasn't washing/brushing my hair. Sad, right? I've seen some similar stories online where people go through depression and let their hair mat. Oof.

When I went for services this summer, after two years of covid self-trimming/coloring, the stylist had this pretty bleach blond shade, and I spontaneously asked her, "Can I do what you have?" And then she bleached EVERYTHING, my whole head. And I LOVE it. Bleaching/lightening has come a long way, as a chemical process, and now you can do it with bonders to protect hair integrity. I'll rock this shade for many years to come. I know it's trivial, but things like this keep putting the spirit of *me* back into my life.

It's understandable that who we are as caregivers is often a put-aside version of ourselves. Claiming back some space for YOU is important. Good on you if that manifests as a new haircut/color -- hopefully, one that you love. lol

It's just hair. Get something that makes you smile at yourself in the mirror every day. Or grimace while you grow it out. But whatever it is, do things to support your positive mental health.

The right hairdresser will make you the blond you always wanted to be. 😉 The wrong one will have you spending months thinking on your sins. 😅

I have an elementary school picture and my bangs are lopsided. My dad for some reason or another decided to cut my hair. It was hideous looking lol

I decided about 7 years ago to get my chin length trimmed for a sports banquet. It was collar length. The guy who cut it had been a Marine barber. I ended up hair about an inch long. I haven't had my hair cut since then. Fortunately, my hair grows fairly quick. I'm having trimmed tomorrow in the salon. I've always had good luck here.

Not a cut but color, when I was in college for some unfathomable reason I felt the need to play with hair color. Long before any need for it. This was in the days of when you took pictures you had to wait for them to be developed and pick them up. So one Easter I’d colored my hair and my then boyfriend and I took some pictures. All the while my mom kept saying “your hair is orange” I knew she hated me coloring it and assumed she was just being rude about it. Few days later the pictures come back and my hair was sooooo ORANGE! I was horrified, couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen it for what it was! New box of hair color went on immediately, a shade of dull brown! Wish I could say I apologized to mom…

I have a reverse story. One of my friends was getting married, and as I was maid of honor she kept insisting that I let my hair grow. FOR A YEAR ! I have strange "Irish " type hair.. not lots of ringlets but sort of a poodle if its humid and straight and fine when its not. I hated that dang hair the entire year.. told my hairdresser every time that the day I got home from the wedding she could lop it all off. Now my hair grows really fast.. and on the day of the wedding the stylist gave me an updo.. I looked EXACTLY like Sarah Palin. I have pictures to prove this! And I really sort of loved it but heck i don't have time for this styling when I get up at 4 am for work! The week I got back I let her lop it off to my shoulders, and I was one happy client!

In the 70s I had a "Farrah" hairdo, then in the 80s I had a "Flock of Seagulls" hairdo, in the 90s I had a "Rachel" hairdo... now I have a modified "Rachel" because my stick-straight hair requires too much work and hairspray to do much of anything else. Less time on hair so I can spend more time on makeup. Sigh.

A "Tilted Wedge" done during the Dorothy Hammil wedge haircut in the late 1970's. It looked just as bad as it sounds!

And Mom's AL had an in-house salon where a stylist came once a week to do the resident's hair. Mom refused to get her hair done there saying everyone came out looking like Shirley Temple!

It took me forever to grow my hair long so I feel for you hair -growers! Main issue was from well-meaning but too enthusiastic hairdressers who didn’t believe me when I said my hair really does grow slowwwww. They just chopped away!

My best hair fail was trying to ‘do’ mom’s hair when she was in the neuro-icu. Somebody handed me a dry-shower type thing that you put over the head and rub and make magic with. I swear I tried to tidy her hair but when I was through she looked like she’d been struck by lightning several times LOL. My only regret is not getting a photo. Oh well at least she was cleaner??

I think if I were you, I'd have made a mad dash out the front door at the first sign of the 'electric shears'! But that's neither here nor there now, huh? :)

I was about 16 and thought I wanted a layered look where the top was shorter and the bottom was longer. What I wound up with was a MULLET and I have very fine hair making the look 100x worse than it should have been. So I wore bandannas, literally, for months on end until my hair grew out to the point where the mullet was no longer apparent. Ugh, that was by far THE worst haircut I'd ever gotten.

Nowadays I avoid the chain type 'salons' and stick with my hairdresser who knows me, knows my hair, and always does a great job. I looked at Groot and think he's pretty darn cute myself. Plus, hair grows back in time if you hate it!

I was tasked with taking a young male relative for a back to school haircut. Already saddled with multiple responsibilities (self and others) and too little time, I decided to tie in the haircut with my errand-running and took him to the salon within a department store in the mall. Not my first choice for a young boy (even though he is well mannered and behaves himself), but it fit the schedule. Let's just say that I don't think they see a lot of kids there..... He was in the chair for 45 minutes for a trim that normally takes 10 minutes at the most. And, it was one of the strangest cuts I'd ever seen. Picture a bowl cut - but gone awry. A bowl cut running away with itself. Or something.... By some small miracle, there was enough new growth by the time school pictures came around a couple of weeks later that the pictures were actually kind of OK..... Goodness gracious. Yes, haircuts need to be the right time and place.

I had worked patiently to grow my hair out to about that length and it took about a year.

Went to get a 'trim' and my hairdresser was having some serious emotional issues and he hacked it all off. I was so shocked I couldn't speak. He felt terrible--but there was nothing to do but cut it all short.

I admit I cried all the way home. It's a challenge of patience to grow out your hair--and I so wanted the ease of long hair again after years of short 'mom cuts'.

When I lost ALL my hair due to chemo, that was hard. It grew back in very weird and I still can't style it correctly. I guess I learned through that--that any hair is better than none. But I do miss my long hair. (It was past my waist in HS, and I was kind of known as having 'great hair'.

We have a service where I live that comes to the house to cut our hair. It’s the same haircutter every time and it is fun to see her. She cuts hair on the porch, cleans it all up and takes it away. It’s $38 per person plus a tip. It’s wonderful not to have to go out and be exposed to Covidiot coughing people in a salon. It’s called SpaDash and there are probably similar services elsewhere.

I'm so sorry that a simple thing like a haircut went so sideways! Have you tried downloading the apps for Great Clips, Sport Clips or Fantastic Sam's? This way you can see the openings and book your time online without having to call or drive around.

If you join Nextdoor.com you may be able to find someone in your neighborhood who cuts hair in their home (like my DIL).

Baby Groot is pretty adorable...