Unicorn Ponytail Haircut

It's been a long time since I've had a haircut! I heard a protip recently (long after baby was born) that moms should get a haircut in the third trimester because they definitely won't have time once baby is here. I didn't do that, and with the quarantine who knows when I can get back in. So I found myself watching YouTube videos on cutting my own hair. 

I decided to try the unicorn ponytail method. Basically you gather all your hair up into a ponytail on your forehead, and when you chop it, you end up with long layers in the back and short layers in the front. 

I chopped just a couple inches off to start. Trevor walked in after I finished... and admitted it didn't look any different than it had before. He helped me snip it again for round 2. I was nervous when I took the ponytail out. Would it look awesome, or would I be a YouTube fail? 

The answer is... neither. It's just as long as before. Some of my layers might be shorter maybe?? I look at the hair in my trash can and my reflection in the mirror, and I just don't get it. I thought I was chopping off a lot. But my hair did have layers already so... maybe that threw off the ponytail thing. 

I think I'm going back to YouTube to figure out how to lose more length. 

New Hair?

It's pretty late right now... but this looks like it could be a fun change:




We'll see how I feel tomorrow. :)

A Little More Natural

And..... my hair saga continues!!

So... when I last updated you I'd gone in to get my hair toned down. My ombre was super two-toned and I wanted it to be more like the subtle sombre style I'd initially wanted. My hairstylist fixed it in two steps: 1) adding some brown lowlights (close to my natural color) to break up the line between blond and brunette, and 2) toning the blonde to a less dramatic blonde that blended better with my natural color.

I was very pleased with the look. But unfortunately, the toner didn't last. Within a couple weeks, it was back to a pretty vibrant blond. The lowlights stayed, which helped. But it still wasn't quite what I wanted.

So... back to the salon today. I stole these pictures from my hairstylist's instagram (@hairbykayleekret).

MUCH better! I am very happy with it. :)

Also, today I found out that my natural hair color is the darkest shade of blonde! All these years my family teased me about being a blonde, turns out they were right. I always figured it was light brown.

A Brave New Look

So you all remember my latest hair experiment, when I decided to go ombre. It didn't quite go as planned, although I did manage to get it toned down a bit. 

For the most part, I was able to relax and have fun with it. But in certain lighting, especially as its grown out more, it just looks SO two toned. No real transition between the two colors, just brown on top and blond everywhere else. And I kept remembering what the stylist said when I went to get it fixed. I asked if there was anyway she could bring the brown down to my jawline, like we originally discussed, and she warned that if we did, it would look too two toned.

Anyway, all of that is to say that it's finally time to retire the ombre and go for a more natural look. After loads of internet research, I decided to try something called ecaille.

Here's my celebrity inspiration:

So... basically ecaille is quite a bit like ombre (as you can tell from this picture's subtle caption--hardy-har). It is dark on top and light on the bottom, but inside of being two tones blended together, you mix in lots of highlights in various tones to create a more natural look. Ecaille is French for tortoiseshell--the idea is to mix the sorts of colors that you'd see in a tortoiseshell comb.

Anyway, that's the idea. I am well aware this could go awry, like the last attempt. But this time I'm going in to see my favorite hairstylist, someone who's been doing all the McAllister women hair since... I don't even know. Five or six years, I think? I trust her.

So here's my before pics:

SOOO two toned! Ack!

And... here's after!

Sooo much more subtle! :) I am very pleased.

Sombre part 2

So, I was brave and went back this morning for a hair repair. My stylist was very sweet and understanding. She dedicated two hours of her morning to fixing my hair for me--she weaved in brown to tone down the blond. I am quite happy with the results (although not with my ability to take pictures of said results).

As you can see, much MUCH more subtle. I am pleased.

The back is basically the same, though. Also.... I got so frustrated with how the pictures weren't coming out, I shot this crazy over my head angle, and guess what? It ended up being my favorite picture!

Sombre

Before:

You can laugh at my high school style selfie.

Horrible angle, I know. I took this baby with a self-timer. :) Yet, somehow I still took it in front of a mirror. Can't explain the logic there.

Dang it...  I just realized I'm wearing the shirt in these pics!!

So.... here is where I'm supposed to post the radiant new pics of me and my beautiful new sombre hair style.

Except... things didn't go as planned yesterday.

I went armed with pictures. I talked with the stylist longer than I usually do beforehand. I stressed that I wanted the end color to be pretty close to mine, that I really wanted a subtle effect. The stylist specifically asked me where I wanted the sombre color to begin, and I said the bottom of my chin.

Two and a half hours later... I was almost solidly blond. Well, the back isn't so bad. But the subtle face framing she planned to do essentially turned all the hair around my face bright honey blond. With my v-cut, when I let just a little hair fall over my shoulders... all I can see is blond. And she started it higher up than I hoped for. There's about four or five inches of my natural color at the top, followed by a couple inches of transition, and by the time you get to my ears, my hair is just plain old blond. I was hoping for the ombre to start lower down... this way I worry that it just looks like I dyed my hair blonde and then let it grow out for a few months.

I'm not really pleased with it. By the time the stylist was finished, I'd been there for two and a half hours, we were there a half an hour past closing time (of course, she started the appointment half an hour late, so that was a big part of why that happened)... and so I didn't push her to fix it right then and there. But she could tell I wasn't happy, even though I tried to be polite about it. She told me I have a week to go back and she'll fix anything I don't like. I think I'm going to be brave and take her up on that. Hopefully take 2 will go better!

And... after all this, you still want pictures, right? Okay, I will show you. It's not as bad as I'm making it sound, it's just not what I had in mind.

Hmm... Probably should have cropped that lovely arm view.

V-Cut

So, I got a haircut today.

I attempted to get cute pics to show you, but it didn't go so well. First, after just barely managing a blurry picture of the back, my camera informed me that it was completely dead by making this horrible screaming noise and then going to black. And unfortunately in my frantic packing, I have misplaced my camera charger. (Just kidding! Totally just remembered where it is! :D) But anyway, it's busy charging now. I attempted to get pics on my phone, but I was reminded that I don't have the steadiest hands... Everything came out kinda blurry. My camera usually handles that for me.

And don't even talk to me about how hard is was to get the pictures off my phone!! Usually it takes two seconds, but not this time!

Oh well. All of this is to explain why the pictures below do not look like the ones people post on Pinterest. :)

Ignore the weird faces I make in these please :)

So the basic idea is that the hair tapers to a V in the back, which means I have short layers in the front. It's kind of like a mullet, but a heck of a lot more attractive.

Getting the haircut was an experience. I went to BYU's new salon on campus. It's super cheap, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing.  I was armed with a Pinterest picture to show what I was looking for. The girl seemed skeptical when she saw it. "Are you sure you want to do that?" "Yes. I'm sure." She looked vaguely worried (I thought)... and it made me a little concerned when she didn't talk to me much during the haircut, she just stared intently at what she was doing with a furrowed brow and a look of intense concentration.

I hoped everything was going okay back there... At the end, the stylist gushed and gushed about how much she loved it until I started believing  it. :) She told me all this stuff about how the remnants of my old highlights gave it a cool tipped look. And then she said, "This is the first V-cut I've ever seen that I actually thought looked good!"

Whoa whoa whoa. Hold the phone. So your concern before you started was that you thought I was asking for an ugly haircut??? And... is this really the only V-cut you've ever liked, or are you just saying you like it because you're the one who did it? Do you think my hair is ugly?

So I rushed home to examine it in the mirror. But you know what... I really like it. :) It's a way to have long hair without it being so heavy--my head feels so much lighter!

Edit: Camera charged enough to get some better pictures... Lucky you!

Business in the front...

Party in the back

I can't take a pic of the back of my head without using a mirror.

A Little Change

This morning, my hair looked like this:

Now, my hair looks like this:

Notice anything different? :)

Hair Again

So my blond look never really grew on me. So today I went in and got it fixed. :) I am back to my normal color with just a few subtle highlights. And I LOVE it. :)

Blond Moment

So it looks like I am a blond again! Accidentally... again. When will I learn? Haha.

For a little self Valentine's Day gift, I scheduled a hair appointment this morning to get it cut and highlighted. I've been working on moving back to my natural color, having the stylist put in more low lights each time to cover up all the blond, but this time all I said was that I wanted the new highlights to be about the same as what I had already. The stylist agreed. But when she took out the foils, the first words out of her mouth were "Wow, your hair lightens fast!" In the studio, I didn't realize how blond I really was, but when I came home and saw myself in the mirror, I realized this was a much bigger change that I'd been anticipating.

Right now, I can't decide whether or not I like it. I remember when this happened to me before (last summer) I was horrified at first but then I learned to really like it. So... I think I will probably keep it for now... but we'll see. I'm going to see if I like it any better tomorrow when I style it myself.

Pictures:

Oh yeah, and I got bangs too. :) We switched my part to the other side of my head and cut swoop bangs. What do you think?

Hair

The blond highlight look was fun for summer, but I decided I wanted to go back to my natural color:

I think Shauna was more interested in getting a picture of her Jimmer poster than a pic of my hair, but that should give you some idea of my new/old look. :) I think I like it!

Hair again

So today my lovely little sister introduced me to a photo editing program that allows me to change my hair color. I came up with these wondrous creations:
Blond:

Redhead:

Pink!:

Conclusion? Maaaaybe I need to stick with my blond highlights/natural color. Although that pink hair is pretty hot. :)