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That only works if it's the style you want AND you have the hair for it.
I was a hair dresser for 8 years until moving overseas lost my Ohio state license. Thinking about getting back into it, it only takes me 3 months to get a clientele.
The perfect haircut is crooked as heck but gives the illusion of being perfectly even. The hardest thing to do is a straight line, because hair just doesn't fall that way.
When you want your bra strap length hair cut blunt and then layered... if they pull the ends out and hold it to cut it, you're going to get an unclean edge. That's because the hair under the bulk of it will be longer, because of the action of pulling the hair out to cut it. One little finger under the hair to hold it steady will add a half inch of fringe on the bottom. Fine if you want a soft look. I swear like 90% of stylists hold the hair wrong when they're cutting. Every angle you have your hand at means something in how the hair will fall. If you're tapering a short cut, and you hold your hand straight up and down, you'll get bulk where the taper should be. Your fingers need pointed at the head. It makes all the difference in if a pixie cut will look good after 6 weeks, or only 3.
If they pull your bangs down and cut them while holding them, they'll bounce back how ever the feel like, on the whim of your cowlick. You have to cut bangs dry, and free. No holding until you go in for layers and texture. And watch the eyebrows, you don't want to cut them. LOL
And the chemicals... good lord. Perms especially. It's like the schools just stopped teaching about them in the 80's. There's so much to it! What size rod to get what curl on what texture of hair. Which chemical to use... a cold acid, a warming alkaline, a neutral one that requires outside heat... each has a purpose. The direction you set the rod, how you wrap the hair around it, it all matters. Most stylists, will give you an old lady set if your hair is medium or short, and will spiral it if it's long. That's all. And it doesn't look good on everyone. If they do everything right but then fail to rinse thoroughly, that has it's own issues.
Hair straighteners... there are two types. The active ingredients of those two types... are the the active ingredients in Nair. Caution and knowledge is key!
You can relax natural curls by coming through perm solution. Lot's of uses for the different chemicals, supposing you know how they all work and understand what needs a person's hair has. Also works when a perm is too tight 2 weeks after the first time.
You can perm bleached hair, but you better be fast. But you can't re-bleach hair, because the chemical process starts where it left off. Same with the straighteners, but not the perming solutions. Color can't lift color, but it will continually lift the natural undertone color. So if you have naturally black hair, and you cover your gray with black color, and you put it all over your head every time you do it, your natural color will go from black to blond in 5 processes, and you'll have a big problem with fading. Even though outwardly your hair is black, you've removed all of the natural pigment from the not gray hair with the 20 volume permanent color. If there was a way to remove the color after those processes without doing any change to the natural pigments, leaving only the remaining undertones, you would see that natural gray, and then varying shades of orange to blond where your natural black was. Cool, huh?
The longevity of a color is determined by the size of the pigment molecules. Red being the largest, it fades the fastest. Yellow is the smallest, and stays the longest. That's why when you lighten hair, it will stay yellow for some time and will either turn white or melt off or a combination of both. That's why toners are needed for platinum blond, to cancel out the yellow to prevent the hair from falling apart.
Fine hair is a heck of a lot stronger than thick/course hair. Something to do with the thickness of the cortex.
A good stylist knows all that stuff, and then some, and is handy and creative as well as mechanically minded with scissors. They should be able to blue print a photo, and then alter those measurements to make it work on your head. The really creative ones though, will have a signature cut that they're really good at on about any head, hopefully that style is what you want.
The problem, is the lack of training salons offer. Many will give the required continuing education. But they'll choose a fun class that's pretty worthless for everyday application. Like formal styles. Great for prom season and weddings. But... for a typical 8 hour day... cutting classes should be what's chosen. And the classes should be like every 3 months, not 8 hours every two years as required for most states.
Thank you, that was very informative.
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