Terrible Hair Stylist Etiquette

Three Things I Never Wanted to Hear While Getting My Hair Cut

Being a hair stylist isn’t just about cutting people’s hair; it’s about making your customers feel good they chose you to cut their hair. Hair stylists have a different styles of social interact with their clients, from tight-lipped to gossipy. But no matter how your hair stylist talks (or doesn’t talk) to you, there are some things you just never want to hear.

I’ve always been wary of getting my hair cut by a stylist. After all, cutting hair isn’t that hard, and I can cut my own hair into the style I want ninety percent of the time. I’m actually kind of a savant when it comes to cutting my own hair, but that’s another story.

From time to time, I’ve enlisted the services of professional hair stylists. As a teenager, I thought it was great fun to plop myself down in an unfamiliar hair stylist’s chair and say, “Surprise me!” I got some great haircuts that way, and I suspect I was the guinea pig for more than one Fantastic Sam’s employee to vent his frustrated creativity. I’ve had everything from a mohawk to a steeply asymmetrical bob, and I’ve loved every one of my “surprise” haircuts.

On the other hand, a surprise haircut also means a surprise hair stylist. To preserve the theme of the unforeseen haircut, I never went to the same hair stylist twice. You can see what’s coming next, right? Let’s just say that although the haircuts were fun, some of my hair stylists were more socially adept than others.

It started with the woman who gave me the haircut that resembled a pixie cut in back and a graduated bob in front. I loved that haircut, which seemed to become popular in the late nineties before resurfacing again recently. The haircut was neat, but not the reason I’m telling you about this particular stylist. The point of this story is that this woman exclaimed, mid-haircut, “Wow! You’ve got such a hairy neck!”