I sometimes feel sorry for my hairdresser, who has to put up with me coming in and saying "give me something different," or - I want a short hairstyle for summer, etc.
He has a lot of hairstyle magazines in the waiting area, so many times he grabs one of them and starts to show me samples of what he thinks I might like.
As I sat there waiting for him to find something, I realized what a rough job he had. In fact, we were talking one day as he was trying to figure out what kind of short trendy hairstyle he could make out of my current medium hairstyle when he confessed that he did much better when people brought in pictures of hairstyles they liked.
He told me that one day a man came in and asked for a dangerous-looking hairstyle
Now, even though my hairdresser is always up-to-date on the latest hairstyles (both men's hairstyles and womens hairstyles,) he had no idea what this guys impression of dangerous was. He looked kind of worried when he told that me since he had no clue, he just gave the guy a typical men's hairstyle. He wasn't sure if the guy was satisfied or not.
I know that men's hairstyles cost around $20 (womens hairstyles tend to be a LOT more), and if you're going to pay that kind of money for something, you should get what you want - especially if you tell the hairdresser what you want!
And that's the missing link. When you ask the hairdresser for something different, but you don't have pictures of hairstyles you like, you'll end up with the same old thing. In this case, both parties lost. The hairdresser was not happy because he didn't think he gave the customer the mens hairstyle that he wanted; the customer was not happy because he had been all excited about his new dangerous look, only to end up with the same haircut he always got.
Is there a solution to this problem. Sure! Whenever possible, always bring your hairdresser pictures of what you have in mind. I even take pictures of people on the television and bring them in. He wants a picture so bad he'll even watch a video tape of a person with my vision of a short trendy hairstyle just to get an idea of what I have in mind.
He really just needs a clue as to what you might be looking for in a new hairstyle. Medium length? Long? Shorter? I found out the hard way that he really has a different opinion of how short a short trendy haircut should be (on me) - That's a mistake I'll never make again
Now, with all the new technology out there, there is a way to put on virtual hairstyles and see what you might look like in them before you go in for your hairstyle. I do this all the time, and it has saved me time (growing back hair), and money when I get what I want the first time.