no boys allowed in the room!!!!

K - is your hair thin? Other option is you can cut it just long enough so that you could put it up in a ponytail if you don't want to deal with a big change in maintenance.

I honestly don't believe in fashion rules.

Like, I think you get a sense of what feels comfortable (foremost in importance) and doesn't make you look awful, but mostly it's just a question of taste.

AT 5'8" and 200 lbs I know the world of mainstream "fashion" or "style" or whatever you want to call is simply isn't meant for me, so I'm just going to do with my appearance whatever makes *me* happy.

heavier women should wear their hair long

See I've never actually heard that. I have heard that tall women should wear their hair long. I'm 5'10" and haven't had long hair since HS so I give a big FU to that rule and that women over 40 should wear their hair on the shorter side which generally I sort of think has something to it.

My hair is quite babyfine and also I've been dyeing it for so long that it's about 3 different colours so I'd like to cut a chunk out of at least one of those colours. Two years ago, it was blonde and then I dyed it blood red and now I've been dying it gingery red so a lot of the stuff that has now been three different colours is breaking off all over the place so it's very uneven. And that is bugging me, so firstly I want it all one length, and secondly would like to work towards getting it consistent in colour and not in such bad (breaking over-dyed) shape.

/It just feels like you're projecting on the rest of us because of something unpleasant that happened to you./

Something unpleasant? Nothing that I can think of. I'm willing to believe that you're an exception to the "heavier women should wear their hair long" rule--all fashion rules have exceptions.

My point is not to carve out an exception for myself. It's to suggest that insisting on the rightness of this "rule," as though it is just an objective fact and not your opinion born of a bad haircut decision long ago, comes across as judgmental and rude.

Like if I said, "Women over 35 with long hair look awful because they are trying too hard. It is a rule."

xp

I have a terrible feeling that no matter how carefully I get my hair cut, in a week or two it will end up looking like this, because I am terrible at taking care of my hair:

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/27952613/Aphex+Twin+young.jpg

I am now so thoroughly confused by all these "rules" that I am going to give up and just shave my head. I haven't had a shaved head since I was 15 and that was amazingly easy to take care of.

Want his shirt, though.

I kinda don't want to cut my hair because I fear that I will start to go baldish in an old lady way soon enough and would like to have lovely flowing long hippie locks while I still can. I suppose I should wait and see as more of my grey hairs come in, if they are going to be wirey and thick or even more babyfine than my regular hair.

Kate honestly just go for it. I think that you would look great with a just below chin length bob and it will take care of all the issues you mentioned. Plus, if you hate it you can always take comfort in the fact that it will grow back.

i agree with Erica

also, i feel like there is no way to predict how a new hair style will look, based on shape of face, body, other hair "rules." you kind of just have to take the plunge and get the cut and see how it turns out.

I'd say, that if you're concerned about thinning hair, cut it just long enough to put it in a loose ponytail (as opposed to a tight one)

ime more women look better with shorter hair than longer hair - there is always the compromise of shoulder length, then you can go shorter gradually or you can grow out longer again.

now that i have discovered how good a haircut from cheapo supercuts can be, i'm gonna make a serious effort to go more regularly, instead of letting my hair grow long and hideous out of sheer laziness.

Like if I said, "Women over 35 with long hair look awful because they are trying too hard. It is a rule."

I'd just shrug my shoulders and tell you that the cutoff date was 30 and that that rule has been dead for decades (it was a real one, incidentally). Let's just drop this. I've apologized, and it's clear that I tend to take this kind of thing much less personally than many of you do.

OK, I have decided that I am going to take the plunge and do it, but I'm probably gonna wait until my mum is here so that I have a second opinion*.

*also hoping that my mum will be in a good mood because she is on holiday and will tell me 8 times a day how cute it looks rather than me going ARGH I HATE IT MAKE IT GROW NOW for the next 6 months.

Next question is... WHERE... I hated the last 3 haircuts I've had and I always end up going to Hair By Fairy even though every time I come out of that place, I say SHOOT ME IF I EVER THINK OF GOING THERE AGAIN.

Kate: My hair is babyfine and thinning, too, but I've never dyed it. It's half grey (silver, actually) The thinning part is a problem for me because I was a hairpuller as a child and it's thin enough already.

exciting, Kate!!!

Post a picture of it first thing.

I'm not taking it personally. If I took it personally every time someone thought I was unattractive, I would never be able to leave the house. I do agree that I'm not being particularly constructive anymore, so I apologize for that.

enough with the apologizing - what's the protocol for shiny tights vs. matte?

Shiny tights evoke CASEIN. Please go with the matte.

matte matte matte all the way, but the only tights I wear are the thick black art school girl type, and they really don't work in shiny. (Unless they have silver threads in them - I have had a couple of pairs like that over the years. They were awesome.)

i'm horrible with getting runs and holes, so i get tights from dance supply stores - i generally will only wear shiny if i'm going out dancing

I haven't worn tights for sometime because I haven't worn a skirt in over a year, but I'd go with matte.

this thread actually got me back to wearing skirts and dresses after Laurel succinctly articulated all the problems i've had with pants.

Matte, generally, tho if I had a place to wear shiny tights, I prob would. I am unfashionably fond of patterned tights, too.

that's adventurous! i'm self-conscious about my legs being thick, so i only wear black tights.

The problem is that I don't go out on the town much and I can't wear anything but scrubs to work. Another problem is that I tend to get unsightly stubble about four hours or so after shaving, which means that casual sundress/sunskirt wear would be a problem. I'm going to be doing intake paperwork for flu clinics again this year, so I'll be able to wear skirts at least some of the time.

I haven't worn a pair of tights in about 2 years. If I wear a dress or skirt, I wear leggings underneath. I think that was something I gave up, after the band broke up - dammit, I *never* have to wear a pair of tights again.

But thick black tights are super comfy in cold weather.

I have to wear tights because of the aforementioned body hair problem, unless I can get somewhere to shave in the middle of the day.

Yeah there are not a lot of opportunities in the world of workers compensation law to wear shiny tights, unfortunately. I did wear aqua tights to an MCLE seminar yesterday, though.

oh, i don't wear skirts or dresses without tights unless they're ankle length, because i'll sometimes go weeks without shaving my legs because i often don't give a shit.

I have never shaved my legs in my life and I certainly don't plan on starting now!

It's actually quite funny, when I started working here, they offered me a free Laser Hair Removal as some kind of perk (also practice for the nurses), and I just shrugged and showed them "there's really not enough here to make that worth your while."

I never used to shave my legs and now I have buckled to societal and professional pressure. I take a break during the winter at least.

Tights!! Patterned tend to make me look like a have a dread disease (or at least I'm afraid they do). But I love weird colors. Mustard and turquoise and orange-red and so on.

I have pale skin and dark hair. I also have enough body hair to make clinical hirsutism a possible diagnosis--I have dark wiry hair on my feet, arms, hands and legs, and what amounts to a full beard on my chin (it takes 30 minutes a day to pluck it so I just shave it instead).

I like tights with vertical woven stripes, but I find that they run too quickly.

(Oh, and yes I do shave all of that hair off.)

I dunno. I have always found the western world's obsession with the idea that women be HAIRLESS everywhere except on head pretty strange and kind of inexplicable. (Then again, I find lots of society's rules and obligations WRT women's appearance pretty strange and kind of inexplicable.)

But on the other hand, I'm also aware of my own privilege WRT that, in terms of I'm not so sure it would be easy for me to resist the societal imperative to be hairless if I wasn't a pale skinned pale haired anglo with almost minimal body hair. It's a strange one.

That's not a female thing--the western world has preferred hairless to hairy for most of recorded history. Hairy is considered animalistic and threatening.

Huh. That's odd because I was always under the impression that body hair (& facial hair) was considered erotic, a sign of sexual prowess in men.

OK, I didn't necessarily share that view for a long time but it did seem fairly prevalent.

(personally this has changed as I aged - I used to find hairless men attractive but as I've got older I've definitely started to find beards, leg hair, belly hair, arm hair - OMG I can be reduced to a smouldering pile of lust by the arm hair on say Erol Alkan or someone.)

ha hem. Purely theoretically of course.

Not sure about every ol' civilization, obv, but the Greeks def glorified hairlessness in women and men, as did, I'm pretty sure, the Egyptians.

I always think of those fantastic displays of masculine hair by Persians, Assyrians, Turks, etc.

But now I've started thinking about Turkish arm hair I'll be here all night.

Huh. That's odd because I was always under the impression that body hair (& facial hair) was considered erotic, a sign of sexual prowess in men.

No, it was considered obscene, not erotic.

By whom? By you? By your culture? By this specific time and place?

For gods sake, after 10 years on ILX or whatever, you should have realised that the specific cultural time and place mores under which you live are completely variable and change from place to place and time to time.

Kate, here's a compromise I go with. I haven't been to a hairdresser since 1989 (1987 if you count cutting) so I know your reluctance. i also despise short hair on me so what I do is layers. they're tough to straight cut by yourself but if you pull your hair up in a tight pony at the middle of your hairline at your forehead you can then chop vertically into it at slightly different angles as much as you like. when you undo the pony tail you've lost no length at all but you've gained a whole bunch of volume and a style you can smooth down, shag up or make it straight up punk with enough product A++++++

I wish I had the guts to cut my own hair, but with short fine hair, its a risky thing, I'd mess it up completely.

I cut my own hair for years and I told my self "this looks so no wave" but in reality what it looked like is "I cut my own hair."

When I worked at the donut shop and would have to come to class w/out showering after, with lard and flour & glaze on my hair & person, I also told myself I looked "no wave." Thank god my friend introduced me to the idea of "no wave" in high school or I'd have spent my life thinking I looked like an unsalvagable slob.