More Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

When the opportunity arose to visit the Glamour salon for a new look, I admit I initially wasn't very excited. You see I had this preconceived notion about the Road to Wellness. First, we get in shape, get healthy, find inner peace and discover our true paths, do all the work on the inside and THEN we polish the outside to make it match by getting the new hairstyles, going on a shopping spree, and doing a general make-over. That's the way they do it on all the television shows. But you have to seize your opportunitites when they arise, and here was an opportunity so I needed to shake off my old way of thinking and see it from a different angle. What could possibly be a better way to kickstart the whole wellness journey than by getting a new hairstyle? When I started thinking about it that way, I got excited!


The biggest challenge for me is my hair's thickness. It's pretty thick and it's got a nice bit of natural body, which means I can't do some styles easily like the wispy straight look. And forget about getting a perm! But overall I like my hair, I think I'm lucky because it's pretty easy to take care of and I don't really have any significant problem areas.

I'm any stylist's dream client. I'll try anything once. Dye, cut, whatever, count me in. It's only hair! If I don't like the end result, we can just try something different. It always grows back. In my life I've had long blonde straight hair that I could sit on, short spiky red hair and many colours and styles in between. I've cut it myself. I've let friends and relatives cut it. I haven't really had many regular stylists. I tend to go where the wind blows. I've had high maintenance styles and cuts that required no maintenance at all. The older I get the more I favour low maintenance. Gone are the days when I willingly spent hours in front of the mirror everyday fixing my hair. Now, blow drying equals pampering. I'm a wash and go girl.

And this is basically what I told my stylist du jour, Vanessa McCrae, at Glamour. I liked her right away. She's young with a hip look, the perfect person to give me a younger more modern style. I got even more excited! I think I caught her off-guard with my willingness to experiment and my lack of ideas about the general direction to take that experimentation, but once she felt comfortable that I was going to be okay, no matter what happened, she started getting creative. I liked her committment to customer service. If I had walked in there with a photo from a book and said I wanted that, she would have given me exactly what I wanted. After studying my features and the texture and quality of my hair, Vanessa asked how I felt about an inverted bob, longer on the front, shorter in the back. I'd never done that before, so I said for her to go for it!

I came in with longish wavy locks that I mostly kept up in a ponytail or pinned back in a headband. She cut quite a bit off and then came at me with a flat iron. I actually own a very nice flat iron, but before that day I'd never used it. My hair is so thick, straightening is a pretty major undertaking. So I was excited to see a straight look for the first time since I was a child. When she showed me the results in the mirror, I loved it! The great thing about this cut is that I don't have to use the flat iron everyday, I can still do the wash and go thing and feel good about how I look. But on special occasions I have been spending a bit more time on my look, using the flat iron, and the results have been great! I've received a lot of compliments on this style.


I'm glad I decided to embrace the hair make-over at the beginning of the wellness journey. It really did help kickstart the whole thing. And I'm really glad I got to meet Vanessa and have her do my style. I have found a stylist I trust and I'll definitely be returning to her again.