Ash Pollard: How to survive a bad haircut

Ash Pollard is best known as one of Australia’s most gifted home cooks. But underneath those signature spiral blonde curls, the television personality and radio-host has a noggin full of knowledge that she’ll be sharing exclusively with Be.

Over the next 12 weeks she’ll be sharing her top tips on how to tackle life’s trickiest situations— from what to do during an awkward encounter with an ex, to surviving a dreaded social media slip-up.

This week: how to survive a bad haircut.

Surviving a shocker haircut, to me, is just like tackling any other day really. My hair has a mind of its own and, I guess, in some ways, I have the ability to hide disaster pretty easily. A hair tie or straighteners have been lifesavers in dire hair situations for me!

Having curly hair all my life has been a blessing. I’ve never wanted straight hair even though people always say, “You want what you can’t have".

Not for me, I have the best of both worlds and I’m so grateful to be given a head full of character. It’s a point of difference I have embraced throughout my life. #LuckyDuck.

Unfortunately there can be many situations where you have a hair disaster, but not to worry I’m here to help!

So, you’re visiting the salon hoping for a miraculous makeover and new lease on life but when you leave you received neither. Instead you’ve either had your hair hacked off within an inch of its life, subjected your luscious locks to the worst colour job you’ve ever encountered or you’ve had your hair styled for an event in the exact opposite way of how you wanted it. WHAT THE ACTUAL!

If you are unlucky enough to get yourself into a real pickle, here are some tips that may help.

Have a chat

If anything, it’s probably best to start in the salon where it all happened. Don’t be afraid to tell your hairdresser you aren’t happy with the finished product.

Of course be polite but make sure you let them know what they gave you wasn’t what you wanted so they can sort it out. You shouldn’t be worried you’ll hurt their feelings by telling them. You don’t want to leave the salon feeling worse about yourself. That shouldn’t happen!

At the end of the day, you’ve paid for a service and you should expect accurate delivery on it. Who knows, maybe it’s just a case of cutting another inch off, curling a bit here or straightening a bit there.

Scrub-a-dub-dub

Get home and give your hair a good wash. Stylists can work wonders sometimes but they also sometimes don’t.

It is possible that if you wash and style your own hair at home with your own products you may very well get a different outcome than in the salon. If not, don’t worry, I still have more suggestions…

Mad hatter

It’s time to dig out your favourite hat, because if a re-style didn’t quite cut it you may need something to cover up your hairdo for the time being.

Cover the disappointment with a stylish headpiece, bandana or headband. If I’m ever having a bad hair day I’ll chuck it under a cap and I’m good to go.

Nouveau do

You can’t go wrong here. Grab your GHD or curling wand and try something new. You might be surprised what you come up with.

I lost a great deal of hair after coming out of the jungle on I’m A Celeb and wasn’t used to how thin it had become. So, now I’m stuck working with fine hair. HELP!

If it doesn’t seem to sit right I either straighten it, so it looks neater, or I tease it with my natural curl for that extra oomph.

Sometimes I define my natural curls with a prong which eliminates all the fuzzy bits. And for you girls with straight hair, maybe a bit of roughing up might help. Toss it about a bit and get that sex hair look happening!

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Tie it up

If all else fails, just hide all your locks in an up do. Get your topknot on and own it!

Do the good old messy arrangement, like you aren’t really tyring. But in actual fact it has taken you a good 15 pain-staking minutes to get the perfect birds nest.

Or, when in doubt, a good tight ballerina bun will suffice.

In the end when you’re running out of options you just need to remind yourself: your hair will ALWAYS grow back!

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