Crunchy Curls and Crushed Dreams

What two bad haircuts, 23 hair clips, and one sensible stylist taught me about boundaries

What is it about hairstylists – particularly the Instagram-famous ones – that makes it so hard to tell them: (a) what you want, and (b) that you did not like what they’ve done? These were the questions I should have asked myself before letting yet another haircut go rogue. Instead, I let my hair “grow out” from a “bad haircut” for over a year, and let the fear of getting another one turn into frayed ends, split strands, and excessive breakage.

Here’s the thing: if it’s a bad haircut, it will likely grow out badly. No amount of oiling or tight braiding will course-correct a crooked layer or an over-thinned fringe. You can inform your moms and grandmoms of this objective fact: oiling helps with texture, maybe growth, not shape. Braiding helps with hygiene and maintenance, not health.

Today, I am older and wiser. I have understood the trick to navigate the very specific brand of confidence possessed by hairstylists, with the help of an old, experienced, and unknown one, to whom I now feel eternal gratitude. Therefore, today I have the answers to my initial questions and I can answer them with authority, having also experienced full-on freeze mode on two separate occasions before two different Instagram-famous hairstylists. Call it situational mutism or salon-induced speech paralysis but I had lost the ability to articulate basic things like “just a trim” or “I don’t want face-framing layers.” It was after a year of post-traumatic hair stress, supplemented by several shampoo and conditioner changes, experimentation with clips and hair ties, and hair oiling routines, that I finally found a stylist who listened to me like I was the expert, not her.

Before I dive into my wise tips, you must first understand how important a good haircut has always been to me. Ironically, I am the least experimental with my hair – I have never coloured it, never had a short hair phase, never really ventured into treatments like keratin or the new “hair botox.” I even managed to escape the era when everyone seemed to be crimping or straightening their hair, keeping my curly hair intact and untouched. I once had a friend who believed, with the same conviction I did, that good hair – haircuts, hairstyles, the whole package – was directly proportional to confidence and self-worth. She used to joke that she’d marry a hairstylist and have good hair days for life. Not once did I find that joke outlandish, and I’m pretty sure she was only half-joking.

Anyway, when I say a good haircut has always been important to me, I mean it. As a kid, I only got the haircuts my mother wanted me to get – usually a bowl cut or trims that left it just long enough to tie into two ponytails. Functional, maybe. Flattering? Absolutely not. Once I broke free from the shackles of a hairstyle best described as “maternal convenience,” I had very simple asks. These asks were critical to me – not because I’m high-maintenance, but because I don’t like change all that much. I’m not someone who enjoys being too wild with my look. I have a very specific idea of what suits me, and 95% of that is dictated by one thing: how my already-too-wild, frizzy, and curly hair behaves. To add to my general vanilla character, once, in college, I got a haircut slightly shorter than my usual, and my sister – who I’m sure meant well – told me I’d chopped off my personality. That’s when I knew: I should never stray too far from the tried and tested. And so, for years, my haircut brief has remained the same: my hair should be long enough to pair with all kinds of outfits, and manageable enough that my curls don’t make me look like an ungroomed lion. In haircut terms, this means one, maybe two layers – with not a lot of difference between them in length. Simple, right?

I don’t know if it was my articulation of this requirement (or lack thereof), but that is not what she gave me.

Instagram famous hairstylist number 1:

I did not like her hair – that should have been my first sign that this will not end well. This girl (woman?), let’s call her Chatty Kathy, had become famous for knowing and understanding curly hair, through word-of-mouth more than through Instagram – which really made her seem legitimate to me. She is still very famous, and she is still known for her curly hair magic. Unfortunately, I just know her as – girl who was almost a lawyer, who fought with her father to become a hairstylist, and you know, sometimes she was just drawn to creative things – she was constantly experimenting with her hair, and then her friends started asking her to do theirs, and one thing led to another here she is, almost 15 years later, a partially self-taught hair stylist with a semi-successful standalone salon in the heart of Mumbai. This is a fraction of the things she told me, right after she gave me flack for being half an hour late (which, fair, I was late). Do I like having such in-depth knowledge about people I have known for less than 10 minutes? Sure, I don’t care. Do I like having such in-depth knowledge about people I have known for less than 10 minutes when I am stressed about an impending hair cut? Not even a little bit. This was the barrage of personal history that was flung at me, so I could fully appreciate the gravity of making her wait. She was in demand – and by being late, I had apparently disrespected not just her, but also her father, her friends, and her entire 15-year journey.

I apologized for being late, because I truly was sorry. I was just getting ready to switch out my “I just want a trim” speech with the “I am sorry – delay explanation version” speech, when she shrugged it off, and led me to the chair in the jam-packed salon. To this date, I don’t know if I felt relief for being forgiven so quickly or just plain confusion mixed with some misplaced guilt. I sat on the chair, opened my hair, and once again began rehearsing the carefully constructed monologue about my expectations, but… she just didn’t ask. Instead, she told me what I want. When someone tells you what you want, with confidence and conviction, it is hard to disagree, not least because you are draped in unflattering black polyester. I managed to tell her about my concerns with her suggestion – that my hair is curly and frizzy and that her suggestion may not work for my hair type. I distinctly remember the words that came from her mouth in response to my immature trust issues:

“Bro, have you forgotten who you have come to. Just relax!”

And I did. I relaxed. I will admit I was swept away by her self-assuredness. For a moment, I also believed in her psychic abilities – of course she knows what I want. I mean, she would know what she was doing, right? The curly hair expert? Wrong. In her proclamations about the fate of my hair in her hands she had neglected to inform me, till the very end – after the hair cut – that her magical styling would only work if I spent about a crap load of money on a small army of hair products, ranging from gels to serums to creams and about 30 to 45 minutes after every wash styling it in way that she had that day at the salon. In retrospect, I should have caught on – after I was done with the in-salon hair wash, she spent only about 15 minutes in cutting the hair and a full 45 minutes in styling it. She blow-dried a part of my hair (against my wishes – if she had just asked), slathered it with three different products, and then did the ‘CG’ method (I cannot be bothered to explain it), and ended it with a diffuser. And only after all that did she casually list the post-wash protocol I was now supposed to follow, after Every. Single. Wash. I was dumbstruck – not merely because I didn’t like the cut or the styling, but because now I was being told to replicate this elaborate ritual every time I washed my hair? I managed to tell her that I do not possess this kind of time. On any day. I needed hair that could survive a wash and towel-dry and still function in society. Once again, I remember with the greatest clarity what she said next:

“What! Why didn’t you tell me? No, but anyway, come on hair health is as important as body and mental health. You have to spend time and effort in making it look flawless. It is like going to the gym or eating clean.”

She really seemed to believe that. She also believed that the crunchy birds’ nest that she had plopped on my head looked ‘flawless’. To her credit, she managed to make me relax for the one hour that I was on her chair – the last time I would experience true relaxation for several months. Now, when I look at her Instagram, I realize, she is a performer, a magician, a salesperson, and I am simply not her audience or her customer. The pictures of her clients that flaunt their new hair on her page look happy, and definitely happier than they did in the before pictures. Some of them are so happy, they agree to do video modelling for her. I would be mortified if I had to feature on a public page, even with my regular hair. Another big, big, BIG difference between her usual patrons and myself – they get more than just hair cuts. They get it coloured and treated and transformed. They surrender to her completely. Good for them, and I do wish I had that variety of joie de vivre. I don’t. I am not a free spirit, I don’t want to look like I live in a movie, and that is okay. I’ve simply opted out of the illusion that looking “effortless” must come with 2 hours of preparation.

The next few months went by in aggressive oiling and determined braiding, in the hopes that my hair would find its way back to its usual look. It didn’t. About eight months later, when none of my techniques worked and I was left with overgrown bangs and awkwardly long layers, I decided it was time to fix the situation with a fresh haircut. Unfortunately, this also did not go well.

Instagram famous hairstylist number 2:

She was sweet and charming. She was no ‘curly hair expert’, but she was a senior stylist in a salon that focused on hair and nails. She did have curly hair though, so one might assume she’d know the challenges faced by us curly haired folk, and it appeared she did. She actually asked me what I wanted. She listened, patiently, as I shared a detailed ten-minute monologue that I had dusted off and rehearsed for this endeavour – outlining my expectations, concerns, and past trauma. She even asked follow-up questions. I was so pleasantly surprised, I handed over my trust. Big mistake, because while she seemed to understand the challenges and the anxieties, I could tell that she had absolutely no idea how to fix them. I am not sure if my hair had just grown out to such a ridiculous and unfixable condition or if it was that she was unskilled, but she did not know how to give me just one or two layers with no face framing bangs. To make matters worse, she was also extremely distracted. She was working on another client at the same time – someone who was getting her hair coloured. So, after slathering on colour and wrapping the other client’s head in foil, she would come back to me and resume the cut. The first two times, I resisted the urge to say anything. It was a weekend so possibly a busy time for this salon, and I didn’t want to be a diva. The third time, I spoke up, and asked her how much time it would take. Maybe she sensed I was growing impatient – or maybe I was just visibly angry – because she called over a colleague to take over the colouring client and finally focused on me for the rest of my service.

I truly genuinely just wanted to believe that she did not not know how to meet my expectations, and that she was just distracted, but I would have been a damn fool. It became clearer with every snip that she was clueless. She’d cut one side, go over to the other, cut again, then compare the two – only to realize it was uneven. Then the whole cycle would repeat. I was watching myself get a bowl cut. Again. At one point, I asked her if she thought one of the layers had become too short. She didn’t answer directly. Instead, she tried to distract me by saying I reminded her of a friend who had moved abroad years ago.

I asked, “Did she also have a bowl cut?”

She seemed mildly offended and told me to relax.

Now, I had learned a valuable lesson from my last experience: When someone tells you to relax while you are on a salon chair – SPECIFICALLY AND DECIDEDLY, DO NOT RELAX.

I told her I wished to end the cut right there. Just dry my hair – no styling, no product, no diffuser, and just to please let me go. I really was begging, I think. God forbid I came off as difficult – a woman with a boundary! Alert the church!

That’s when I knew she had messed up – because she refused. She insisted on using a diffuser “just to set the curls” so I could see the look she had given me. I tried to explain to her that the “look” would last only until my next wash, because I neither owned a diffuser nor the army of curly girl products capitalism wants me to invest in. She didn’t listen. She styled it anyway – and once again, I was sent out into the world with hair that looked crunchy like a wig, unnaturally shiny, and cut into weird short curls that would have embarrassed even Superman.

I paid and left in half tears, not having the strength or emotional capacity to fight without ugly crying. I reached home, and restarted the process of aggressive oiling and determined braiding – a ritual which would continue for fifteen months this time. I will admit though, that this time around, when it grew out, it was not all that bad. It was bad, but passable. Finally, fifteen months later, when it reached the shape that is officially called “shapeless” and had ends so frayed it could be used to sweep a room with the same efficacy as a broom, I decided it is time to get a cut, but this time, I had a plan. A strategy. A manifesto. A resolve:

1) I will not go to an Instagram famous hairstylist. I won’t even go to a popular one. I will visit a well-known multi-service parlour, that had no specialization.

2) I will be crystal clear with my demands. Yes – demands. I promoted them from being simple requests.

3) I will ask them to explain each step, show me the length of each cut, and if needed, I will get up and run if they so much as reach for a diffuser. Just because I don’t want a transformation doesn’t mean I don’t care.

4) I WILL be a diva. A loud, precise, boundary-setting diva, who WILL be taken seriously.

Fortunately, while I did convey my requirements, I did not have to unleash a diva or flee the premises. The universe had finally rewarded me for my patience and resilience with a kind, attentive, patient, and experienced hairstylist – someone who actually listened, offered gentle advice, and didn’t push when I politely declined. So now, after nearly two years, I can finally say that I am happy with my haircut. Not because of a trend but because it feels like me. The experience was fuss-free, just like the stylist, and just like my ask (I want to believe) and that’s what made it glorious. Not the first two, just this latest one. This is the experience that has allowed me to accept that while I keep saying my requests are simple, I can be high maintenance – specifically to experienced hairstylists.

I also realize now, it is not that it is difficult to tell a hairstylist what you want or that you did not like what they’ve done, it is just awkward. Also, confronting someone while they’re holding scissors near your ears feels risky. I would just say – be a diva, be demanding, live through the cringe. Odds are, your stylist will appreciate it too. After all, wouldn’t their job be easier if they knew how to make you happy? Maybe those other stylists were great – and I was just the confusing client who never explained her tangled relationship with hair, time, and the emotional weight of a blow-dry.