Haircuts Going Wrong
A client walks in, all excited about her upcoming hair makeover. She hesitates for a moment but then she decides to go for it and hopes for the best. She’s sure about it and definitely wants to look like that pretty short hair model on the photo she brought in. Then when you are ready cutting the pixie, she bursts out in tears and already misses her long hair. Another haircut gone wrong...
A: This question has so many possible explanations. Are there a lot of very experienced and more mature stylists at the salon that you work at, or is it primarily quite young stylists?
Your monthly, upper class customers who like to have their hair maintained in a certain cut, style and color are where the most of the money are to be made, especially if the salon owners are more interested in a steady flow of income.
Young stylists also tend to depend heavily on their creative instincts and artistic natures, while giving little thought of the practical or emotional needs of the client. Thus when a women walks into the salon, clutching a picture of a very cool and trendy pixie cut, a young hairdresser will automatically start envisioning the cut on the client and how to create it, instead of really looking at the client herself.
Will this cut or style look good on the client when you take her facial shape, features, skin tone and hair color into account? Will the client be able to manage the new style on her own? Is she emotionally ready for such a huge step, or is she simply acting out because her boyfriend left her? Or maybe she had a fight with her mother or a colleague at work told her that she looks old and run-down?
Do you see what I’m getting at here? A more mature stylist has the life-experience and discipline to control her creative urges sufficiently enough so that she/he can first evaluate the person, situation and possible outcomes before hacking all the hair off the client in a creative frenzy.
I also have a trick for when someone comes into my salon with a picture in their hands, especially in the case of extreme changes such as long to short or dark brown to platinum. I color the face of the model/celebrity with a thick ink-marker, so that you can’t see the face, only the hairstyle. A lot of the time, the client subconsciously wants to look like the woman in the picture and thinks that by cutting her hair and wearing the same make-up and clothes as the person in the picture, she’ll look like that.
They experience immense trauma when they’ve cut off all their hair, and they end up looking nothing like the person in the picture. After you’ve colored in the face of the picture, ask the person if she still likes the style and take it from there.
Lastly, ALWAYS warn the client beforehand of the huge initial shock that she will experience after such an extreme change. I always tell my clients that it takes at least two weeks to get used to the new look.
©Hairfinder.com
See also:
Try on hairstyles
Hairstyle makeovers
Going short? Think before you cut!