During my late teens, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the hairdresser. Due to my hair’s horrific condition (19-year-old me had never heard of a hair mask), any inch taken off my ends was a tragedy because it never grew back. Slowly but surely, my length got shorter and shorter and I resented anyone coming near me with a pair of scissors if my split ends were their target.

Thankfully, I finally gave my hair what it needed and prioritised health above all else. The result? It started to grow, and hairdressers were no longer my enemy. Fast-forward almost a decade, and going to the hairdresser is now a luxury I look forward to – ironically, now that time is in short supply, I don’t get to go as regularly as I’d like.

I’d focused so much on my hair’s condition and colour (I’ve been a redhead for nearly two years now) that I realised that I hadn’t really deviated from saying anything more adventurous than “Just a quick trim will do” to my stylist. This meant I was in a bit of a hair rut when it came to its shape and length. 

As I became less precious, I trusted my stylists to do whatever they thought would suit me best. Gone were the days of specific picture references or intense negotiations over exactly how many inches were being snipped. I’d gradually relinquished some control – but never complete control until my most recent haircut. I sat looking in the mirror and decided to put complete faith in the hair gods (in this case, Luke Hersheson) and appoint him to get me out of my hair rut.

“Your hair is almost back to front. You’ve got too much volume at the bottom and none at the top,” Luke tells me while fluffing up my mane. He explained that my blunt cut had a curtain effect and wasn’t making the most of my face shape. I then asked him what he would do to fix this gravitational issue if I allowed him free rein over my style.

I’ll be honest: he did suggest a cropped chin-length bob at first, and while I’m not totally ruling out the idea, we concluded that I should give it a little more thought before I underwent the chop. Until I was ready for that, he suggested shorter layers with face-framing curtain-esque bangs, which required him to slice chunks of my hair off with a razor. 

The razor cut allows for less precision and bluntness. You know that feeling after you get a fresh haircut and can’t wait for it to grow out a little to look more lived-in? Well, the razor helps you to skip to that part, and my lap was covered in hair.

Despite losing so much, my hair didn’t look shrunken – I still had the length and weight my fine wavy hair needed, but the shaping had used my natural texture for the better and gave me the volume I needed at the roots to fix my upside-down issue.

The lesson here? Always trust your hairdresser. 

Images: Adobe; Charlotte Bitmead