My hair looks like crap.

It’s too long, and when it gets too long it gets very flat and unflattering.  I usually grab a morning shower and let it air dry into part-waves, part-straight, part-frizz.   What were once sideswept bangs are now layers dipping nearly to my shoulder.

At age 22, when I was bracing myself for life after college graduation, I decided to take the plunge and donate my hair.  As a biology major (specifically, interested in ecology), along with my classmates I spent my senior year looking quite crunchy.  In fact, I don’t think I even had a trim in nearly a year, and I rarely touched a hair dryer.  As a result, my hair spilled a few inches below my bra strap by the time graduation rolled around.  I’ll supplement this with pictures if I can find some.

At the time, the only program I knew about was called Locks of Love.  The requirements were simple:  no hair dye,  minimum of 10 inches.   After the chop chop my neck felt freer but my ego took a hit.  As someone who spent most of her life with shoulder-length or longer hair, my new barely-past-chin look was not at all flattering on me.  My normally gently round face took on a new basketball quality.  The cut itself was cute, but it just didn’t work on me.

So, you may ask, why am I considering torturing myself this way again?

This time, I plan to donate to a different program – Pantene Beautiful Lengths.  The requirements are similar – no permanent dye, but only 8 inches are needed to donate.  My hair has grown to about the same post-college length (this time more out of laziness than crunchiness) and eight inches would put it right above the shoulders.  Still too short for comfort, but long enough I don’t want to waste it.

So, now all I have to do is wait and suffer through this stringy mess a few more months.  A couple more inches would result in a shoulder length cut I can live with, and hopefully help someone out at the same time.