So you want to change your hair and maybe your life. Where to start?
SMH
Annie Brown
April, 2019
For a very long time I have been objectively bad at doing my hair. I’ve tried sporting my fine-yet-also-crunchy locks long (ish) and short, and firstly, let’s scupper the idea that short hair is “easier.” It’s mostly not!
Also, don’t let a new mother get a mum bob. The hormones and the desire to exert some control over her life will make her want to do it, and speaking from painful experience, you won’t have the time or energy or appropriate heat styling tools (let alone enough hands or brain width to use them) to replicate what the hairdresser did.
But just as you will come out of that newborn fug, so too will come an inkling that maybe you could start doing your hair again. Or if, like me, you’ve mostly been wearing your hair in a ponytail the last few years, there might come a time when you’ll feel you want to make a change. That your life, or at least your hair, could be different.
This is dangerous territory of course. As Coco Chanel once said, a woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life. But it can also make you end up with the (see shag in image below) Instagram-famous haircut which, according to who you speak to, suits almost nobody.
Because perhaps, in these impatient times, the least sexy thing you can hear is that it might take time to get better hair. But it’s worth it. Stronger, healthier hair is less likely to lead you down the path of a regrettable fringe, a rash “chop it all off” moment or a ponytail every darn day.
Stronger, healthier hair is less likely to lead you to a regrettable fringe, a rash ‘chop it all off’ moment or a ponytail every darn day.
Jon Pulitano, co-owner and creative director of Sydney’s Headcase Hair salon says the most important thing you can do for your hair is to improve its condition (“it’s the biggest thing”).
Pulitano also recommends products that detoxify the scalp (we all forget about the scalp when it comes to hair care, he says) which can build-up with things like dry shampoo and general living. Christophe Robin has a really nice scrub with sea salt which works as primer before a conditioning mask.
But mostly, you need to be honest about working with what you have. For Pulitano, who favours what he calls “lived-in” haircuts, this means working with the texture of a client’s hair.
“I work with natural texture a lot more …[that way] you can shape your hair and I’ll teach you how to wear it with the least amount of effort rather than needing a blow dry and a tong… it’s about working with what the hair does on its own naturally and enhancing it if you can,” he says.
Shape, says Pulitano is key here too and here’s where a good hair cut plays into how well you treat your hair at home. The better condition your hair is in, the better shape it will hold and then … it becomes easier to do yourself at home.
Bookings can be made here for Headcase Hair Paddington and Headcase Hair Potts Point.
