DIY Cabbage Patch Doll hairdo hell | BBC Radio Solent's Lou Hannan

I’ve often talked about my hatred of the hairdresser.

I mean, the stylist herself is lovely but the whole experience leaves me cold.

I think the pampering gene was omitted when I was created.

So, while the rest of the nation was mourning the shutdown of salons and finding out their true hair colour during lockdown, I was embracing the DIY haircut, delighted not to have to stare at myself in a brightly lit mirror for 45 minutes.

My first attempt at cutting my own fringe wasn’t entirely successful, mainly because I didn’t have a fringe to start with.

However, when faced with a pair of blunt nail scissors and a YouTube video, I figured very little could go wrong.

Obviously it did and resulted in a fringe that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Cabbage Patch Doll (if you’re old enough to remember those!).

However, three months on, a few centimetres of growth and I’ve been started to embrace my longer locks.

For the first time since I was 12, I’ve been sporting a pony tail. But the downside of not having your hair cut for that period of time is the state of your ends. The bottom of my hair was less split ends and more straw like, so a salon appointment was booked.

If you’ve already been back to the hairdresser you’ll know the new safety procedures in place. I was delighted to see how well my local salon was coping – temperatures taken at the door, work stations wiped down religiously and all of the staff in visors.

While I was more than happy to wear a mask during my visit, what I didn’t account for was quite how uncomfortable you feel while you’re having the cut. The hair coming off your head slips down into the mask and you end up either inhaling it or swallowing it. By the time my fringe was finished, I thought I was going to cough up a fur ball.

Because you sweat under the mask by the time you get out of the salon and remove it you end up looking like you’ve got a beard with the hair that’s stuck to your face.

Back to that YouTube tutorial, methinks!

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