Go short or go home

Those who have seen me over the past month, may have noticed I look a little different. I got a haircut. A rather extreme one.

I took my hair down to a half-inch, everywhere. Then, I donated about 17-inch braids to Children With Hair Loss, a nonprofi t that makes wigs for children who have medically-related hair loss, including cancer, alopecia and burns. I also like how the families are not charged for the hair replacements.

While most of the organizations have a minimum requirement for how long donations must be (usually 8 or 10 inches), Children With Hair Loss encourages everyone to try to donate more than the minimum, since recipients often request longer hair replacements. Challenge accepted.

I’ve donated my hair to this organization and similar ones before, but I’ve never gone quite this short on the cut. Usually, I wait a full two years between cuts, which gives it more time to grow out. This time, I got tired of dealing with a long mane a year and a half in. Off with all of it!

Yeah. I cut my hair myself. Those who work with hair for a living will be proud to know that I passed up my kitchen shears and the children’s safety scissors I’ve had since kindergarten, in favor of scissors actually meant for hair. Sure, that was mostly because the clippers I bought happened to come with a pair of scissors, but it did happen.

Cutting my hair took way longer than I expected it to. I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that I took pictures during every step in the process. Gotta show the boyfriend. I probably scarred him for life. Eh. Whatever.

I would share the photos, but there is too much blackmail potential there. Also, my hair will likely look weird as I grow it back out anyway.

I can’t say I love how my new ’do looks, but man, is it ever easy to take care of. Don’t get me wrong, my long hair wasn’t hard to take of. All I did with it was wash and brush it, and tossed it in a ponytail occasionally.

I haven’t had to brush my hair for over a month, which saves at least 15 minutes every day. My hair also does not blow into my mouth or up my nose every time it thinks there might be a little bit of a breeze.

Best of all, nothing has gotten stuck in my hair for a while now. That includes my hair brush (if you know, you know), the bug that bombarded me out of nowhere, and the bits and pieces of mulch floating through the air when I was helping my family plant trees.

OK. Maybe the mulch wasn’t just floating around. It quite possibly was getting dumped on the landscaping fabric I was attempting to hold down. A good chunk of the mulch ended up directly on top of my hands and feet. The smaller pieces flew toward my face. The mulch came out of my hair a lot easier than it came out of my shoes.

I’m thinking short hair will be nice for camping this summer.

Even though my hairdo is easy right now, I am planning to grow it out. Because, do you know what else is easy? Doing absolutely nothing with my hair as it grows out.