The only beauty advice I will ever give the Internet

I haven't cut my hair since Thanksgiving, and then only because my cousin, the Professional Hair Priestess, was in town and giving trims away for free. She sat me down in my grandma's utility room, wrapped a towel around my neck and gave me a salon-quality cut in under 15 minutes. All that time you spend at the fancy salons is just to make you feel like your $50 is actually worth it. It's not the cut, it's the experience, right? (According to my friend The Neighbor, the $50 you drop at Gene Juarez downtown is worth it just for the little complimentary pots of tea you're served while you're waiting.) I'm not so much for salons, though. I like being pampered as much as the next girl, but I prefer my pampering to be done anonymously, which is never possible. Nowhere does there exist the beautician (cosmetologist? Hair Priestess?) who does not yammer on about her boyfriend and her roommate and her chihuahua while she's cutting your hair. And if she's not talking about herself, she's asking YOU questions and that's even worse. I can zone out while she's (or he- I've had many the limber-fingered man chop my hair) blabbering about herself, but I can't even make small talk with my friends.  I HATE sitting there frantically trying to think up the next topic of conversation so that the girl who's cutting my hair doesn't think I'm a boring snob. I end up asking them about the chunks of blue in their hair or where they got their earrings or gosh, I can never get my hair to hold a curl so what do they suggest? I don't recommend this last idea as I once left a salon in Cincinnati with near-permanent poodle dog curls- not the kind of hairstyle one wears to dinner at home with your brother and sister-in-law and baby nephews.

In college I was friends with a girl training at Gene Juarez and she cut my hair for free. I had extra-short little boy hair back then and it was awesome- until she got married and moved away and I went into apoplectic shock at the price of Real Actual Haircuts. Seriously, this is the only reason my hair now reaches halfway down my back.

And people? Hair that long is not good. It clogs the drain, your husband gets a mouthful when you're trying to snuggle at the movies and the baby you hardly ever get to hold at church grabs giant fistfuls and joyously rips it out. I decided, finally, that Something Must Be Done and tried several times to make appointments to have it hacked off, but then I see some movie star in InStyle with long beautiful hair and the Barbie-doll-loving little girl inside of me shrieks, "Nooooooo!" And sometimes the only available people at the salon charge $60 which, well, NO THANKS.

So last night I decided to do the next best and most direly needed thing, which was to cut my bangs. Myself. I've done this a few times with varying degrees of success, usually finishing with a spastic phone call to my aunt to find out if my cousin will be attending the next family gathering. But yesterday I was very very bored, very very restless and very very annoyed with the flop of fringe that hung past my nose. So I drew a little line down the center of my scalp and then a little V shape that went almost but not quite to the edge of my face. I pinned everything else back and then got out my well-worn Fiskars, used for everything from wrapping presents to cutting slices of pizza.

The Internet will tell you to get your bangs wet because it defeats cowlicks, or not to get your bangs wet because you'll cut them too short. The Internet will also tell you to divide your bangs into three sections and snip carefully, or to gather them all together and cut into them at 45 degree angles. But the fastest, easiest and most what-the-hell-why-not way of cutting your bangs is to gather all the hair in the V, twist it into a little rope that hangs in front of your nose and hold it at the end- a little bit below the bridge of your nose. Place your scissors right above your fingers and in one swift snip, cut through the rope. What's left is a little bit longer on the sides, which is what you're going for, and fringey and uneven in the right way. I sweep my bangs to the side, so uneveness is necessary. If you're brave you can make your cut shorter and go for a more blunt look, but if you are attempting this, I MUST emphasize the importance of a quick, short, in-one-fell-swoop slice through your hair. If you go slowly, your rope will untwist itself and you'll be cutting at a funny and surely not attractive angle. Of course, if you are using old Fiskars that live in your kitchen drawer, you will run into this problem anyway. But again- the side sweepy solves everything!

Then comes the issue of how to blend it into the rest of your hair and I have no advice for you on that one. My method involves wielding the scissors at dangerous angles and snipping away until you're either satisfied or you're afraid to go any further. Whatever you do, your Hair Priestess cousin will undoubtedly read you the riot act when she sees you next, but you will at least have saved yourself $60 and made her pity you enough to give you yet ANOTHER free, fabulous and salon-quality haircut.