the razor's edge

Hacked it all off this weekend. I had to. I could put it in a ponytail. By cutting my hair super short, it forces me to actually DO something with it. When it's long, I can just rat up the top, flatiron my bangs and shove everything else behind my ears. Weak style, that.

So I randomly walked into a salon this weekend that A-Squared and I stumbled upon in Santa Monica. And I said basically do whatever you want. And here's what I got: 

Cute, right? Now that it's pixie short, I can swoop my bangs down or push them up into a fauxhawk, put in a sparkly bobby pin when I need to be fancy, rat the top and wear a headband, or just put a crapload of wax in it and make like Edward the vampire. It's cool.

So let's talk about the miracle instrument that created it: the razor. How I love thee. Known for cutting the hair at a steep angle on the end rather than blunt across it like a scissors, the razor can be used with a guard that draws the hair into points across the blade, or more dangerously to the fingers, without. This bare-razor technique is not for the faint of heart, or the unsteady of hands. Although I never learned how to do a shave like that (that's barbering school, not cosmetology), I still love the feel of a fresh blade in the hair.

Tonight at work I used a razor on my last client's fine silky strands, and over the weekend on my sister's thick red wavy shrubbery. Amazing how one tool can flatter both. The reason the razor is so interesting is that while scissor cutting depends on the section width and steadiness of the shears, razor cutting depends on the angle of the blade and pressure applied. The hair is sliced one strand at a time, in a sharp point, releasing all lengths of hair in individual strokes. It's beautiful and styles like a dream, and there's absolutely nothing else like it.