How I Cut My Own Bangs: a house log

Who knew posting one little picture on instagram with Clara would start a tell-me-more-about-the-bangs frenzy? You folks are a curious bunch, demanding a post about my hair. Haha. There were even conspiracy theories that they were not real and I was pulling a Kim K on you folks by flipping my ponytail and faking them. Hilarious! But they are in fact real. Cannot say the same thing about my chest (simply kidding). I simply got off the sofa on Saturday afternoon, walked into the bathroom and cut them, came back out and sat on the sofa, and waited for John and Clara to notice. They seemed not to mind them (in fact John said they made me look “young and hot” so I will take it) and they do quite conveniently cover my forehead wrinkles. So… score!

Because I cut them in the bathroom mirror all by myself, they are certainly not ideal, but they seem to pass as actual bangs in real life, as opposed to looking like a child who took the kitchen scissors to her head. And since many (many) of you folks demanded a walkthrough, here she blows.

I guess we should call this the sister post to the how-I-cut-John’s-hair post that I shared here. It is fairly straightforward so quite honestly the most awkward part was getting these photos taken. Gah, I am terrible at posing for John. So it went something like this:

John: click, click, click, “Do you need anything else?”

Me: “Ahh, this is stupid. Nevermind! We are done.”

John: “What? I only took three photos? You sure?”

Me: “Ok, what about one like this? Ahh, too close. Back up! back up! Perhaps we need to buy a lens to make my face artfully blurry.”

John: “Um… ok. So we are done?”

As for the actual walkthrough, it goes like this:

All I did was pull the hair in front that I thought should be bangs (which made a soft curved shape at the crown) forward and then I pulled the rest of my hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of the way. My hair might look ambiguously wet/dry in the picture above, but it is fully dry.

Which leads us to step 2…

I looked up a few pictures on google of people with blunt bangs simply to notice where they stopped. The ones I liked most sort of grazed the eyelashes (good thing I looked since my first instinct would have been to cut them above my eyebrows- eeks!). Then I cut them dry while looking in the mirror with the part of hair that I sectioned out simply flopping in front of my face. Cutting them dry is key for me since wet hair can look heavier and longer and then dry and shrink up, thereby ruining your life. Well, that is a little dramatic, but it can certainly pull a fast one on you, so dry hair seems to work best for ending up with bangs at the actual intended length.

Then I dipped my head into the sink to get my bangs all wet and used a blow-dryer to blow them dry in front of my face. This was helpful because after I dried them a few long stragglers stuck out and I snipped them straight across for a more blunt look. I have a ridiculous cowlick, so I am trying not to be a crazy about how they fall. Although in this instagram picture there was a funny comb-over effect going on since a few from the other side of my head danced over to that side (hence those few guesses that this was a bang hoax I guess, haha).

Thanks to the aforementioned cowlick, sometimes I pull them apart like this. Simply if it is humid and they are being wonky. Sorry about this bad self portrait, I was past the point of embarrassment after posing for John, seeing the pictures he took, deleting them in horror, and telling him to back out of the room slowly while whispering “it is not your fault this is simply so awkwaaaard.”

I can still pin them all back with two compact bobby pins and rock my regular old pony (which I did last night for the Austin signing since it was crazy rainy and my hair + humidity = Frizz-fest 2013). So I guess I get three looks from this little snip-fest: 1) blunt bangs, 2)parted bangs, and 3) no bangs at all thanks to Mrs Bobby and her friend Pins.

Anyway, I hope this swift little walkthrough helps someone out there save some money on a bang trim or something. Or simply gives you all a good laugh at how uncomfortable capturing these photos in fact was for me. It might sound crazy but I am used to taking pictures of the house, not my mug. So it took me right back to high school yearbook photos and I was all clammy and weird about it. Seriously I did not know where to look, how to smile, it was a mess. Anyone else tackling some Hands-on haircuts at home? Or rocking some freshly shorn bangs? Tell $herdog all about it.