Haircut Pictures and Pixie Cut Growth

I’ve had a handful (a small handful . . . 2 or 3 fingers’ worth) of requests for more pictures of my haircut. I’m never positive which version of my haircut is being requested, but I’ll try to oblige. I’ll start at its shortest and show you how it’s grown into its current cut.

The Pixie

I had this super-short pixie cut for about a year, and I would highly, highly, highly recommend getting this haircut if even just a little teensy part of you has wanted to try it. I’ve always loved really short hairstyles on other people, but felt a little scared to try it myself . . . and I loved having my hair this short. Just do it. Don’t be a weenie—it’s only hair, it’ll grow back. And if you want, I’ll come out to wherever you are and hold your hand at the salon (as long as you provide the transportation, that is).

(This is the closest I could find to a side view of this haircut . . . HA! Look at Forrest! He looks like a finger-sucking piglet!)PROS:

1. You will not believe all the compliments you’ll get on your hair. Most women seem downright terrified to try something different with their hair, and they’ll act like you’re a goddess for going pixie-short. Even my friends’ husbands, and husband’s friends, were telling me how much they liked it, and that they wished their wives/girlfriends would try something like it. And we’ve all been thinking men only like long hair.

2. It’s easy to style and incredibly low-fuss.

3. Your daily styling time is about 5 minutes. I never once used a blow dryer or hardly any products on it—just a little pomade or gel to spike some bits up and piece out the bangs.

4. Even a bad hair day with the pixie cut leaves you looking more chic and pulled-together than a greasy, sloppy ponytail does. (This is a big part of why I tried out this haircut—I wasn’t putting enough effort into having cute long hair, so why keep it?)

5. You can cross it off your bucket list . . . a really short haircut seems to me like something every woman should be brave and try at some point.

(This picture is what I would have considered a bad hair day for the pixie—kind of flat and boring . . . but it’s still so much better than my bad hair days were with long hair.)

CONS:

1. I bet you’ll love it . . .  if you don’t, however, it will take quite a while to grow back (but think of all the fun in-between styles you’ll get to try out as it grows!).

2. It requires daily work—no more relying on a ponytail when you don’t feel like doing your hair, and you will wake up every single day with insane Frankenstein hair that needs fixing—but the styling time is about the same time as it takes to pull up a ponytail, so that’s not really a huge con. Just get it wet, spike out some pieces, and you’re done.

3. It can get a little pricey to maintain . . . when I had my hair this short, I was getting trims every 6 or 7 weeks. But on the other hand, I never spent any money on products or tools, so the price of frequent trims didn’t feel like a very big deal.

4. You don’t have as many styling options, so if you’re someone who loves to try new things with your hair, you might get frustrated with the lack of variety. This wasn’t really a big issue for me—I’m not very talented at hairstyling anyway, so I didn’t miss having options. 

5. The biggest potential con I can see is that you can’t hide behind your long hair anymore. When people look at you, they will see you—your face, your bones, your expressions—not your hair. You’ll feel a bit naked for the first few days when you realize people are really seeing you and not just seeing a long mane of hair. But that is also a very liberating, powerful feeling . . . I’ve never felt as confident and pretty as when I wasn’t depending on (or worrying about) my hair.

The Beiber: an unfortunate transitional stage

After roughly a year of the pixie cut, my husband started hinting—not so subtly—that he’d love it if I grew it out again. We both liked it short, but it was time for a change. And I was starting to get a tad envious of long-haired ladies and the many cute options they had. I got my last pixie haircut in July and have been growing it ever since (although I’ve had a few haircuts since then to trim the mullet and shape it so it’ll look nicer as it grows). I expected many months of really awkward-looking hair . . . it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. But after 2 or 3 months of growth, I did go through an embarrassing Beiber stage.

It was at its worst in the fall, during the crochet along—it was long enough to get wavy, but still a bit too short to use a flat iron on; we were definitely venturing into mullet territory, and the length around the ears was really awkward (too short to leave out, but not quite long enough to stay tucked). It felt (and looked) really goofy and awkward, and I struggled to find a way to style it that helped hide the weird stage. Not surprisingly, I had a hard time finding pictures of the Beiber . . . I definitely avoided the camera for a while. I found some, though, and I am not happy about posting them. Send me cookies to thank me for them.

The In-Betweener

A few weeks after those pictures (and the crushing blow to my self-esteem that came with them), I got a haircut. I asked the stylist to shape it so that it could grow into an A-line bob—shorter, stacked layers in the back with longer layers around the face. It was far from an A-line in length, but it was at least shaped in a way that would allow it to grow into that style. (This was about 3-4 months post-pixie.)

Getting the mullet trimmed was enough to keep the back looking decent, and the layers around the front were finally long enough to do a little something with—they could stay tucked behind my ears, but I thought they looked cute flipped out around my face.

 

The A-Line

I’m now 6 months into growing out my pixie cut—I’ve had 2 or 3 trims to get rid of the neck layer that for some reason grows about twice as fast as everything else, and to shape it into an A-line cut. This is how it looks now:

It’s at a point now where I wouldn’t really consider it “grow-out” hair . . . it looks to me like I meant to cut it like this, not like I’m growing out a shorter cut. I really like it at this point, especially on day 2 or 3 after I’ve styled it, when it gets kind of pokey-outey (please do use that term with your hairstylist). I shampoo it every 3 or 4 days . . . this picture is 4 days after my last shampoo/style. Each day, it gets a little pokier and flippier on its own, which I really like.

(I was actually taking this picture to show my sister a new lip color I bought . . . but it shows pretty well how this haircut really looks most of the time.)

There’s still a bit of a “hole” in the side—that shorter section right at my ear was once the shortest layer of the pixie cut and is taking longer to grow in:

This haircut definitely takes more time to style than the pixie cut ever did, but it has the benefit of only requiring work every 3 or 4 days . . . one styling lasts a few days, which definitely was not the case for my very short haircut. A little teasing/fluffing and I like it as much or more after 3-ish days than the day I originally styled it. Plus it gives me more styling options, and it’s crazy how long this haircut feels compared to my hair 6 months ago. I’m not sure anyone else would ever consider this a long style, but I keep walking past mirrors and going, “Mercy, who is that mermaid fairy princess with the super long Rapunzel hair?!”

So there you have it—my hair, in all its glory. And, in case anyone else out there is working on growing out a pixie cut, here’s what I’ve learned to make it a little less painful and awkward:

1. Trim that mullet. You’ll feel like you should boycott haircuts of any type so you can keep every new inch you get, but a mullet is never your friend, and it will be the first and most noticeable new length. Trim that bad boy.

2. Focus on hair health. This, along with laziness, is the reason I only shampoo and style my hair every 4-ish days. Healthy hair will (sort of) grow faster since you won’t lose as much length to breakage and split ends. So get regular trims (make sure your stylist knows you’re growing it out so she gives you just the teensiest of baby trims!) and try to avoid using heat very often to style it. Sad story: I fried a section of my bangs the other day when I was trying a little too hard to flat-iron them into submission, and now have a small section of bangs that’s all frizzled up and probably a half inch shorter than the rest. Just go easy on your hair or you’ll be right back where you started.

3. Accessorize! Headbands, bobby pins, cute clips, flowers . . . they help so much to hide awkward pieces, mask a bad hair day, and make an in-between transition cut look more “on purpose.”  Forever 21 is my favorite place for cheap, cute hair accessories. I also love headwraps (like the ones in my shop!) and hats for awkward in-between stages and bad hair days, or for adding another day or two before I wash and style my greasy head.

4. Enjoy each new stage as it comes. It would be so easy to get frustrated that it’s taking so long to grow (hair only grows something like 1/2” per month, so it’s going to be quite a long time before it’s the length I’m working toward) so I’ve tried very hard to focus on the fun points of each new length I reach. Even the Beib with all its transient awkwardness was a chance to crochet myself a few cute hats and shop for hairclips and headbands (which I’ll still be able to enjoy even when my hair is longer).