9 signs it’s time to break up with your hairdresser.

By NICKY CHAMP

1. He/she gives you a drastic haircut even though you’re clearly in the midst of a personal crisis.

If you’ve marched in to the salon – hairspiration tears in tow – exclaiming you’re after a “whole new me”, it should be mandatory for the stylist (after lying you down on their spare psychiatrist’s couch) to ask if you might be in a fragile emotional state.

AND THEN REFUSE TO CUT YOUR HAIR.

I once had a hair appointment the day after I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me and instead of cancelling it, I went along and cut off roughly 30 inches of my long blonde hair into a bleached pixie crop.

Worst decision ever.

A dead giveaway that I might’ve been mentally unstable at the time was that I practically cried though the whole appointment, not sure how my hairdresser missed that huge red flag there. Needless to say, I never went back.

2. He/she just doesn’t get it.

I once had to break up with a hairdresser because despite repeatedly asking for something edgy, I kept leaving the salon looking like this:

It was 2006.

3. They split-end shame you.

“Who cut your hair last?”
“When WAS the last time you got a haircut?”
”Did you cut your own hair?”

It’s all just code for ‘you have really shit hair.’

Haircuts are expensive so if we’ve decided to have a go at some retro home hair cutting maintenance or attempted to cut a fringe with kitchen shears after one two many chardys that’s totally our prerogative, there’s no need to be an ass about it.

(Side note: a hairdresser in New York reckons he’s developed a cure for split ends but it’ll cost you. The service, requires special scissors that heat up to 310 degrees that seal the ends of the hair to “trap moisture inside” and prevent them from splitting, costs $350.)

4. He/she talks you out of a change because they clearly don’t have enough time to do it.

This has happened to me, which was kind of awkward because I was supposed to be trying out a new hair colour for a hair colour company. The appointment was made on my behalf so to be completely fair they might not have passed on the colour change memo.

Oh and I was er, a few minutes late to the appointment but in my defence instead of being honest with me the stylist said, “Lets just give you a toner to see if you like the colour change and then next time come and get the full colour.”

I could tell that he meant “I have no time to do a full colour change tonight, so this is my compromise.” At the end of the three-hour process I looked pretty much exactly the same and any “warmth” I had came out after one wash.

Celebrity hair and make up artist of Edwards and Co, Byron Turbull says, “if they rush you through and don’t give you your desired result, then it’s time to break up.”

“Ideally if a client needs an extended appointment we would request the salon coordinator to move our schedules back 15 minutes. Just to allow that we get the best result with every client, every time.”

5. He/she is often hungover/shabby/not in a present state.

For a lot of women who work full-time and can only get to the salon on a Saturday, you’d think the best time to book an appointment would be first thing when the stylist is ‘fresh’ but not so says a hairdresser friend of mine (who wants to remain anonymous).

“Ten or 11am is the best time as they’ve got a couple of haircuts under their belt by then and have probably ingested enough double espressos to be shake off any shadiness,” she says.

6. He/she hands you over to an apprentice to do your blowdry.

Um, I’m not paying the equivalent of a night at a five star resort for a rookie to give me an outdated flick hairstyle not unlike Betty Draper in Mad Men*.

*This actually happened.

7. They try to convince you your haircut is great even though you clearly hate it.

You feel like this:

When you should feel like this:

8. Or worse they send you out in the world looking like this:

I mean, I’ve had some shockers but seriously, who came to the conclusion camouflage dyed hair was a good thing?

9. If he/she doesn’t oblige if you’re not happy with it and want to go back.

It takes balls to ring up your salon and say you’re unhappy with your hair and it takes even more balls to sit there and say you hate it instead of nodding your head while making barely audible approval sounds, paying full price and then waiting to get inside the safety of your car before you burst into tears.

But either way if you’re not happy, they shouldn’t be happy. If they don’t offer a free consultation to understand what your issue is, dump ’em.

What have I missed? Have you ever broken up with a hairdresser? What was the final straw?

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