Bombadee's Garden: The Kilted Coiffeur

Mar 17, 2012

The Kilted Coiffeur

A guy at the copy shop said to me, "Wow you have such long hair, let me guess, your husband won't let you cut it." I took immediate offense as I realized I looked like a person who had no control over how I wear my hair. I replied "No, I'm just lazy and haven't had it cut in three years." I started looking at it in the mirror, all the heavy locks that I usually just put in a bun every day. The same long, heavy, dark mane I had in college. I once read that people keep their hair in the style they had when they had the most fun in life. I think about this when I see women with the big bouffant feathered hair from the 80s, I think about it when you see comb overs and mullets and I was thinking about it looking in the mirror. Just six years ago I had a pixie (see profile picture on the right) so clearly I'm not hanging onto the past.... or am I. "Oh no" I thought.

So, I looked online for a hair cuttery close to home, I read reviews and perused a few websites before I found The Kilted Coiffeur who said "Love Your Hair, Every Day"... Nope I didn't love my hair, not any of the days. Sometimes I loved it just after I blow dried it and flipped it upside down and was standing in a certain light, just slightly to the left, but only for about five minutes and I wanted to love it every day now that I thought about it. I stalked The Kilted Coiffeur on Facebook, carefully looking at all the hair and eye-balling the stylist to see if it was someone I thought I might want to talk to while being coiffed. Dark thick nerdy glasses, asymmetrical hair cut, standing next to Rachael Ray smiling - yep, that was the guy. That was the guy I wanted to save me from being a dowdy housewife, the guy I could trust to figure out what I needed. I called him, he was out of state teaching a class solidifying my choice. I booked an appointment online.

On this St. Patrick's day morning I got up early and ran out of the house while the children slept, not knowing what I wanted my head to look like. Michael, quite literally, Thee Kilted Coiffeur, walked in for his first appointment (me) wearing an actual kilt and carrying bagpipes slug over his shoulder, no I'm not even kidding. He has an event tonight where he'll play bagpipes, but I like to think he wore the kilt in recognition of my new do. We talked about my hair and I explained the last cut (years ago) wasn't my favorite and how I'm scared and hyper critical now. I think I mentioned I was going blog about it too so really no pressure at all (haha!) Michael made his suggestion and I said "do it." I trusted him. He chopped a big hunk off the bottom and held it up like a savage Celt who just got a rabbit. I was happy to see it go. Then scissors were flying. I felt the weight coming off and off and off and off and finally an hour and a half later...

What I'm not sure you can see is how freaking soft and bouncy my hair is. Get ready for the slew of photos of my head so I can show it off and try to convey how awesome it is. I keep shaking my head like some kind of Prell commercial just to feel it move. On this day I love my hair and I think probably I will tomorrow too and when I'm not feeling the love so much, I'll just call Michael again.