free haircuts in the park

I’m sure you are all wondering-WHY on earth did I cut my hair?? I know some people are sad, possibly mad that I recently chopped my hair off. I’m about to give my reasons so hold the questions! PS-this post contains many selfies, so proceed at your own risk.

I’ve wanted to cut my hair short for quite some time now, I just haven’t had the guts to do it. Since I’ve had extensions put in my hair every few months for a year now, I especially didn’t want to cut off the hair that I just paid money for. When I cam to New York though, I thought to myself, “self, why are you so afraid to cut your hair off when you’ve wanted to do it for so long??” ok, maybe my thought process wasn’t that simple or short, but it was something like that. On the Saturday after my birthday, after I also got my nose re-pierced (which is an entirely different story for another time), I was participating in my usual Saturday routine, scrolling through my Insta feed, when I came upon a rare thing from Vogue-something FREE! I started to investigate this rare event they were hosting, which happened to be Free Haircuts in the Park with Christiaan! I saw the word free, then haircut, then park and I was sold. The info graph said the event was that day starting at 3pm and going until dusk, AKA who-knows-when. After my usual Chipotle I made my way down to Madison Square Park, which happens to be one of my favorites to see what the buzz was about. I got to the park right at 3, and I saw a list going around for people getting in line to get their haircuts by the famous Christiaan so of course I put my name on the list and was told I would be called around 4:45.

To be honest, I had no idea who this Christiaan they spoke of was, so I did a little research. Christiaan might as well be a hair god because he’s styled the likes of Grace Jones and Kate Moss (to read all about him on VOGUEpedia click here). I did notice however that there were other stylist around, I eventually learned that the stylist that does product development for Living Proof (the line of products Jennifer Aniston uses) was there, as well as Oribe’s creator and founder, who would eventually do mine. An hour passed as I snacked on Shake Shack and crept over to the circle of people gathered around the stylists chopping and flinging hair all over the graveled area of the park, and patiently waited to be called. 4:45 came and went and I still hadn’t gotten my haircut, so I went and asked again when I was up, and the gal working for Vogue with cute flatform heels said now it looked like it would be around 5:30, if I even got a haircut. I decided that I had been there for a large part of the day, so I would leave. I left, went back to my room and then shopped a little and around 6:30 I decided to come back to the park to see if the hundreds of people were still there-the answer is yes, they were. I asked once more, and I was actually next to get my hair chopped. I gave an example of the cut I wanted, then put on a bib and sat on a stool in the middle of Madison Square Park with the Flatiron building in my view and got my haircut. After a few chops with the scissors I was told I was done! I was given a handheld mirror to see this finished work, and I was very pleased! Then I stuck around for a few more minutes to admire the brave souls who gave their hair over to the hairstylists and said DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. I was in awe and had a tad bit of jealousy for their braveness, but I knew I had better leave before I decided to get even crazier with my hair.

So back to the part of the story where I explain why I cut my hair off-