short story

Andréa Childs, 50, on how her dramatic haircut has made her feel more confident…

I’d finally worked out how to dress for my shape in my thirties. But my hair, that was an ageless, styled-on-a-whim thing. I’ve worn it long, I’ve had it short, I’ve been a redhead with waves, brown-haired and bobbed, and a spiky blonde with red tips (that was in the 80s; don’t judge me). I was the person who’d have eight inches cut off with a snip of a ponytail. Until I realised that person – the fearless, up for it, hairbrained one – wasn’t the figure looking at me in the mirror any more.

Between work and kids and, you know – life – I’d lost my hair mojo. My go-to look for my mid-back-length tresses was a messy bun for day or straightened curtains for a night out. Both gorgeous and glam at the right moment, but more often, just mindless, that’ll-do solutions for the mess on the top of my head. It didn’t help that I had a significant birthday on the horizon. It wasn’t that I felt I was too old for long hair, I just felt I’d lost my hair identity. My coiffure and me had grown apart; we needed to find the love again. And the only way to do it was to get serious. It was time to go for the chop.

Half measures weren’t going to cut it; no “lobs” or shoulder-length layers. To make a difference I needed a style that was properly short at the back and sides, and that I could see suited a grown-up woman with a face shape similar to me. Robyn Wright as Claire Underwood in House of Cards was almost it, but I worried I’d look hard-faced and helmetheaded. Then I saw Michelle Williams on the cover of Vanity Fair; cropped but soft,

‘Why I went for the chop’

with a fringe that could be brushed forward or pinned to one side to change up the look. I showed it to my husband. He was so enthusiastic I was instantly convinced he’d hated my hair for years. I showed my daughter, who used to suck her thumb while she twirled my hair around her fingers. “Go for it,” she said, without a thought for her sentimental mum mourning those baby days.

So, I did, with the wonderful Premlee at Hershesons. He nodded at my picture, swept my hair this way and that, assessing its weight and texture, and judging it ideal for the choppy look I wanted. “You sure?”, he asked before wielding his scissors, but we both knew there was no turning back. Even with just a hacked-off ponytail, my hair had more attitude. As he snipped it shorter, I couldn’t help smiling. By the time he’d showed me how to rough-dry it and put on some wax, I was holding my head higher.

Any dramatic transformation will spark a reaction, so of course people have commented on my new look (positively, thank goodness). Catching sight of myself in shop windows can still surprise me. But this haircut feels like me, not a persona I’m trying to live up to. I think it feels right because I followed my instinct, not a set of rules about what a woman my age should look like. Headline news: if your heart is telling you to go for the chop, go for it.