Is there anyone, anywhere in the world, who puts things off more than someone who has hair halfway down their length but can’t decide whether to cut it or let it grow? How outrageous!
It’s like a curse!
If I’m caught with my hair any length that ends between my jawline and my shoulders, I’m the biggest bore in the world, listing the pros and cons of wearing my hair shorter (‘it looks so good when it’s styled!’) or longer (‘it barely needs styling and I can tie it back!’) and meeting any advice with a look of anguish, as if to say: You just don’t understand my situation.
Because it’s true: People who don’t have mid-length hair don’t know how unsettling it is to be stuck in hair purgatory, neither here nor there, wandering around the interior of the hairstyle world. Those who have chosen mid-length hair on purpose are fine; some people love the free, relaxed movement that doesn’t touch the torso or brush the chin. They have mid-length hair by choice and don’t suffer from the same constant feeling of indecision as people with mid-length hair who are “just passing through.”
Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? For anyone who’s growing out a shorter cut. Or, conversely, experimenting with cutting their long hair shorter, but stopping short of committing to a bob. The mid-length is a transitional phase, a waiting room, but one that you have to stay in for so long that you start to wonder if you couldn’t just save yourself the trouble and head for the exit to get the whole thing over with. Chop it all off again. Get bangs. Anything, anything! But suffer through the boredom of the mid-length era.
Read: How to grow out a bob
Two things: I’m not saying that medium-length hair is boring, I’m just saying that the growing phase is boring. Secondly, I realize that there are much more important things to worry about in life, that the entire planet seems to be in destruction mode and AI is about to take over the world, but I’ll say it again: those who don’t have medium-length hair simply don’t understand our plight.
We can picture ourselves with long, lush hair that falls silkily past our shoulders and is heavy enough to hang down, but we also see pictures of ourselves with the short, French-girl bob and mourn the loss of our cool. We mourn the sexy little cut that took ten years off us and made our necks look long and elegant. The haircut that could be transformed into something cat-like and choppy in about eight minutes. The style that looked like differentfresh and –sorry for using this word– daring.
The growth phase between the jaw and shoulder forces those of us with medium hair to oscillate between our two options almost endlessly: it’s mental torment! How long should we wait? Will we wait and then realise that it was all in vain and that we should have kept it short all along?
It is the hair equivalent of that scene in Brave heart where William Wallace rides alongside the nervous army telling them that Wait! Wait! Hold the line! He wants them to wait, not to attack too soon, to let their hair grow a little longer, to have a little patience.
(My God, this has to be the worst illustrative example I’ve ever used.)
William Wallace doesn’t want to waste all that preparation time, all that anxious pep-talk period of getting ready for a fight, by suddenly panicking and rushing in with all guns drawn. (They didn’t have guns, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if they did in the movie. Brave heart (Not exactly known for historical accuracy.) If they had gone ahead with it, it would have been like cutting off all your hair before you had a chance to see what it was like for a long time.
No, no. This strange little analogy has fallen apart.
All I’m saying is that when you have medium length hair, because you’re growing your hair shorter, you tend to spend a lot of time wondering which way you want to go with it.
I tell you all this spectacularly pointless preamble because last week I had the joy of shooting again with Sam McKnight. Sam McKnight MBE, super hairdresser, creator of iconic looks (he is famous for having cut Princess Diana’s hair) and one of the most prolific and inspiring hairdressers in the world.
We were filming him getting his hair done in the ultimate supermodel hairstyle, which gave him… me a chance to read you something from my new book (it’s OUT, in case you’ve been hiding under a rock – How not to be a supermodel is available here) and gave him I had the chance to indulge in some of his amazing stories from back in the day. It was like Jackanory was in the studio on Friday, it really was.
But the notable part of the conversation was this (and keep in mind that I had entered the studio feeling less than elated about the length of my hair, wondering if it was going to be a slightly scruffy length to give me a supermodel makeover): When I asked Sam how he would cut my hair if I could do whatever I wanted with it, he simply said, “I’d leave it exactly as is.”
Just imagine! One of the world’s greatest hair masters tells you that your hair length, which you previously thought was a bit of a “party pooper,” is almost perfect! Versatilecalled him. Cool.*
It’s possible that he just didn’t want to have to get out the scissors, of course. Maybe he thought I’d say “Come on, cut some off then!” and that he’d have to wearily begin the process of getting my hair wet and putting a robe over my shoulders, etc. In a way, he gave me the smartest answer: who wouldn’t be flattered to be told that their current hairstyle is simply the best one for them?
I don’t care: I’ll take it. At least it will put an end to my daily deliberations (grow it, cut it?) and motivate me to learn new styles and techniques. In any case, I’ve managed to get past the treacherous Lord Farquaad stage of mid-length, where hair sits in a square wedge of triangles and makes you look like a medieval lute player.
(I wrote a post about smart tips for growing hair on my website. here(This is one of the posts I need to move to Substack for easier reference.)
And so: I think I may be in a strange truce with my hair that is never quite right. And I have Sam to thank for this new lease on middle-height life. Maybe I really am. am Just the right point, could it be… perfect? Because I can put my hair up, but also give it shape and movement if I curl it, but also make it look long and elegant if I straighten it.
I was about six weeks away from cutting it off completely again, but maybe when I go to my next appointment I’ll say instead:
“Just a little snip.”
You can watch Sam creating the ultimate glamorous mid-length style in our Youtube video. here.
*I can’t promise I got the interesting part across, I had to think of another word to achieve rhythm and flow.
