It's what you wear from ear to ear, and not from head to toe that matters...

...In my case, we're not talking about a smile. We're talking about bangs.

When I was roughly 6 or 7 my mom had either cut my bangs for me, or had Sue - my grandma's hairstylist - give me the new look. I wish I could remember the scene because I might be able to piece together my childhood thoughts, making this a much better story. However, as a 6 or 7 year old, I was mainly concerned with dolls, disney movies and spying on my brother and the neighbor boy as they made weapons out of sticks and shot at every cat and squirrel with nerf guns. My hair was hardly a concern - I was oblivious to the fact that I had gone from being a toehead a few years before to a medium shade of honey brown. This particular cut was the turning point for me - from this time on, I would always be aware of how my hair looked. My bangs, regardless of what they were before, had been cut evenly from ear to ear, as if a ruler had been used. They lay across my forehead like a striped curtain, shades of sand, straw and bark. There was no need to tuck my hair behind my ears because there wasn't really any hair to tuck. I'm sure my mom, or Sue - whoever was guilty of this act that had brought to life my self esteem - just saw it as a quick way to get the hair out of my eyes, something that would last a little longer than an every-four-weeks trim. I was never picked on for this haircut; in fact, a few girls I went to school with had this same style and I'm sure that's what spurred this hack-a-thon. The problem I had is that through the next two years, I was still growing these bangs out. TWO YEARS. There are pictures far worse from the original haircut - the actual bang area was still at eyebrow length, but the fringe that had been cut before was still growing. SO, not only did I start out with two distinct levels of hair, I now had three: eyes, ears, shoulders. ("head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes..." there could've been a song about my haircut! "eyes, ears and nose and toes..." or something like that.) I think of this haircut every single time I cut someone's bangs, and usually tell the story too, which is a good conversation starter because guests always love to reminisce about their looks and the hideous, usually 80's-inflicted looks of their loved ones (at which they can laugh even more). Cutting bangs is a hard task - as a stylist, you're factoring in the shape of the face (mine was such a regular round, cheeky, childish face), growth patterns and what the guest will be doing with their hair (I took baths at night, slept on my hair, and woke up to an extremely stubborn whorl at the left-front of my mulletish bangs that no amount of water or brushing could conquer), and the possibility of taking too much off (not always in length, but in my case, width!). Bangs, or fringe as most stylists in the beauty industry call the area of hair from the bridge of the nose to the top of the forehead, are a defining part of a person's look. They are the picture frame to a picture (the face), and set the tone of the facial features. 6 or 7 year olds usually don't have a lot to frame because their faces are pure and free from mood-setting shades of eyeshadow, so it shouldn't have been a big deal to me and at the time, probably wasn't. But I look at pictures now and think, "I had a mullet". I can't look at those pictures now and think "gee, I was cute" or "I wish my hair was blonde again". My frame was just too big for my picture - I had a 3x5 picture in a 5x7 frame.

Last week, I had my instructor cut my bangs, and of course, recapped this whole story while he was cutting. I even squinted at times and wanted to pull away - I was so afraid of looking like I was someone in a care home who got monthly cuts in my hospital gown from an orderly who had formerly been a barber. Other students came over to see what was going on, and knowing about my insecurity, made comments like "John! what are you doing to her!", to jolt my nerves a bit. I felt bad for him. I did not want to discredit his skills and his well-known talent (he's one of the best instructors in the schools). He finally made the last snips and let me take a look. I was impressed. My hair fell exactly where I wanted it to (I still fight the whorl that was obviously out of control in most of my childhood pictures), and it gave my face a different approach. I mean, it was still my face (cheeks, small eyes, pink undertones, lipstick stained lips), but it had a brightness to it - a sort of fresh, possibly loveable, curious and accepting appearance. He had taken that time to accomodate and assist my crazy, unable to tame fringe - he worked with them, not against them.

Not that bangs and people really have a connection other than how they make someone's face look, but I think that working with and sculpting something with care can create effects that one has yet to imagine. This idea can be applied to things and it can also be applied to people. When you work with people and how you help sculpt their image, however irrelevant it may seem at the time, you can produce a final result that inspires change and reveals new emotions. There are so many of these moments in the beauty industry - times that make you feel reinvented, times that the 6 or 7 year old with lots of bangs appears in your head and smiles approvingly, saying "that's more of what I had in mind."