Hideous

If you see a girl walking around West London with a paper bag over her head and holes cut out for eyes, don’t be alarmed. She has probably been the victim of a bad haircut.

'She' is ‘Me’, and this has never happened before. I've heard getting a truly bad haircut is seen as a Rite of Passage in some circles... and today was my lucky day.

B and I arrived early for our haircuts. Walking up to a painfully cool Studio, tucked away between a club and a cavernous vintage records store off Brick Lane, it was slightly intimidating. I say this because we literally had to walk under a warehouse roll-a-door and past dumpsters to get to a pair of tall glass doors flanked by actual black velvet ropes each side of the entrance. Yup.

Inside we were greeted by Kylie, thumping out of the sound system (I was impressed by the acoustics..) and introduced to our stylists. B got a guy with white patent leather Doc Martins and a highlighted undercut. I got a tanned and ripped little man in a tight, low v-neck, accessorised with a well placed jade necklace.

He sat me down and I showed him the picture of what I wanted. ‘Fabulous. We make it sexy, K.' I tried to go into a bit more detail but was cut off. 'I do photo shoots! I do magazines and models! No worries. OK. I know what you want. You trust me.' Not alarmed by the dramatics, the 'I do magazines and models' had the intended effect, so I figured I'd just go with it.

While he was cutting he didn't do much talking. 'Fabulous.', 'Beautiful.' and 'I love it.', were his main words. 'Show me your sexy smile' was his sentence. Once I asked if I could read a Vogue. 'No, no, no! You don't read now. Enjoy your haircut! It's going to be about an hour… Then read all you want K!' Fine... I settled for listeing to the house compelation- "When Will I Be Famous". Catchy. Make mental note to download.

'It’s done! You look Fabulous!’ ‘I love it!' Yes I did actually... 'What about the fringe?' I asked. He took a breath and pursed his lips for effect. 'No! No! No! You do not listen! I say we NO do fringe, it not suit you!' I sensed a bit of ‘lost-in-translation’.. ‘Oh. Okay? But that was what I asked for..?’ *silence* 'Fine!' *flourish with a comb* 'We give you fringe.' He cut a bit more.. then more… For fear of being berated a second time I didn't say a thing. I just sat there - silently screaming inside.

Then in a quiet state of shock. We left.

To say my self-esteem had taken a hit would be an understatement… more like it had got the shit kicked out of it!

I ran into the nearest Starbucks and locked myself in the toilet to survey the damage. At worst I look like Ferris Buelers Sister:

At best; with some pins, I could pull off Audrey Hepburn a la Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

So nursing my bruised ego I braved it through brunch, then ran home and bought chocolate and Gossipgirl season three to hide from the world under my doona, where I've remained.

I don’t want to face the world on Monday x