cool photo of my hair from a month or so ago

A while ago, I decided to bleach my hair (again).  My stylist, Lynne, was redoing her website and gave me a discount in exchange for modeling for pictures for her new website.  She styled my hair, adding white streaks to tone down the color (which always turns out a little brassy), and teasing it.  She had a makeup artist there to do me up, and her friend Stan took pics.  They came out cool -- here is one!

I am growing out my hair so I can do a mohawk ponytail (the plan is to continue to keep the undercut on the sides).

A hair in review

My hair has changed a lot in the past year or so.  At first I was growing it long, partly because I wanted to be a Native American princess on Halloween, although my plans were thwarted last year.

photo by Erica Soto

Last spring I went to Miami and my friend buzzed the side of my head for me, because I wanted to look like Alice Dellal.

Then I cut a ponytail length of hair off and had a half bob:

Then I got my hair buzzed.

Just for kicks, here's another pic of me with my soon-to-be famous friend B and her famous godmother.

After a bit, I decided to bleach my hair blonde.

Once the roots started growing out, it actually started looking better.

I dyed the blonde purple.

It washed out while I was in Puerto Rico (I'm guessing the sea water took a toll on the color).  My friend Pooja took this awesome pic of me.

At the end of January, George took this pic of me.

Then I went for purple again, but this time more of an ombre effect.  It's a little hard to see because of the glare here.

This is what my hair looks like today.  The purple has mostly faded, and I like the pale lavender color.  I've gotten compliments on it from a bunch of strangers in the street.  You can see the ombre effect better here than in the previous picture.  My dad also gave me an undercut to neaten it up a bit.  I'm trying to grow my hair out like Kate Lanphear, although I'm

I'm trying to grow my hair out like Kate Lanphear, although I don't really want to bleach my hair again.  I want to see what it looks like when the black has grown more and the tips are blonde.

My hair is short again!

It's that time again.  Time when I get bored with my hair and chop it all off.  As you may recall from my previous post, after my trip to Miami, my hair looked like this:

Long, but buzzed on the side.  My hair was quite long, a few inches past my shoulder blades.  Although it was pretty, it's been hot in NY this summer, and in general, my hair feels like more of a nuisance, especially when I go rock climbing and my hair is so long it doesn't stay in a bun so well any more.

I've always admired Kate Lanphear's style, especially her hair, which looks like this:

I'd been looking at images of women with short hair for inspiration for the project I'm working on, and came across an article online about salons that specialized in short haircuts.  One salon was Crops for Girls, in the East Village (437 E 9th street between 1st and A).  Reviews on Yelp were positive and I read that he gave free hair cuts for people planning to donate their hair, so I called and made an appointment.

Michael, the proprietor, was very nice.  I got there a bit later than planned after hitting up a friend's BBQ, but he didn't get angry.  He is a little shy but knows his shit.  I showed him pictures of what I wanted, and after snipping off my ponytail (which I will be donating to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths after a friend mentioned this NYT article that says most of the hair donated to Locks of Love are trashed), he got down to business.  We listened to jazz singer Peggy Lee croon as he snipped my hair, and talked about the stars from the 40s whose portraits adorn his salon.  His salon has a retro feel, and was very clean and nicely decorated.  About an hour later, I had a beautiful new haircut.  He touched up the buzzing that was growing out on the side (and fixed some mistakes I had made while trying to touch it up myself) and created a sleek bob on the other side.

I've gotten lots of compliments and even my parents like it, so I know that he did a good job.  I am hoping to shave my head at some point though, or bleaching my hair so I can be more like Kate, who is such a badass.