Aging Short Hair

Woman in her fourties and wearing her hair short
Photo: Rade Kovac/Shutterstock
Q: A couple of women in my neighborhood who are in their forties cut their hair short recently. Probably because they think long hair is wrong when you have a certain age and because they want to look younger. The result of the short cut, however, is that they look older than before.
 
I never thought short hair could be aging. How can you know whether or not short hair will make you look older? Shouldn't hairdressers give adequate advice and try to avoid that clients that want to look younger make wrong haircut choices?
 
A: A good hairdresser is always going to try to advise the client to make the most flattering choices for him or her. However, we are also under considerable pressure to make the client happy. When what a client wants and a truly flattering look aren't compatible, problems can arise.
 
It's this kind of thing that causes a short style to age an individual. Regardless of the length, when a style isn't well-suited to an individual, it exaggerates the more problematic features. Likewise, a short style that features a lot of hard edges and choppiness, can emphasize similar patterns (such as wrinkles in the skin) in the face.
 
The key is to really acknowledge and address the issues of the individual's features. If the individual has sharp, prominent features or heavy lines and wrinkles, the hairstyle needs to be effuse and soft, with gentle curves. Hard-edged and heavily textured, choppy styles with such features will only make the problem features appear more pronounced.
 
Aside from basic balancing efforts, there really are no specific rules that say, if "A" is true then you must do "B". Hairdressing, for all the training and science behind much of the processes and techniques, is still an art form and the talent and creativity of an individual stylist means just as much as his or her experience levels.
 
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See also:
 
Age appropriate hairstyles
 
A look at long hair and the mature woman
 
Hair tips for looking younger
 
Is short hair boring?