Questions Relating Hair

jaus tail said:

Hello everyone,

In my story a bully(8 year old girl) chops the victim's(7 year old girl) hair with a scissor. My question is how would the barber help her? Are there other options than making her bald? Is there an age limit for extensions?

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Wasn't she 10?

Regardless, making her bald? I don't understand. One girl cut the other girl's hair - what hair did she have before and what happened? It's inconceivable that a kid, or anyone really, would be able to cut someone's hair off to bald using a pair of scissors. Besides how impossible that'd be logistically, the other kid wouldn't just sit there for an hour.

The bully (aged 8) wouldn't really be able to cut her hair to the extent that a hairdresser would need to suggest her head be shaved. The most would be a pixie-cut, I would think.

jaus tail said:

The bully didn't cut her bald. She made a mess out of it and I want the victim to go to a saloon where the barber will suggest her to go bald and then wait for the hair to regrow.

As for how the victim allows her hair to be chopped, well the bully is a lot stronger and slaps the victim, bends her fingers backwards, then kicks her knee twisting her leg at an impossible angle. She then straddles her and chops her hair. The victim cries but isn't as strong.

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Why would shaving it off help? I can't imagine that helping.

He'd just cut it into a style.

jaus tail said:

Shaving would be the extreme option. I was looking for other options. Cutting it into pixie cut/style, sounds plausible.

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A pixie cut would not only be obvious, but - in terms of character - if you're not the sort of person who sees yourself as a pixie, it can be very, well, abusive.

I say that as someone who's been given a pixie-cut against my will

jaus tail said:

She's just a little girl who's hair has been chopped off. She's crying anyway. Her dad takes her to the barber who'll give her a pixie cut. I want the story to be about how her dad consoles her.
She wouldn't have any option other than to go with the pixie cut.

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Does she want a pixie cut? Does it go with the sense that she has of herself? If her dad tells her she looks pretty with it, will that be enough for her?

(I love these sorts of stories. Perhaps because I was the kind of little girl who thought she was bigger and tougher than anyone knew.)

I look forward to seeing what you do with this, Jaus.

Do you literally mean a barber as opposed to a hairdresser? Girls (and women) don't typically have their hair cut at a barber's, which tends to be very much a male place, even now. A hair salon may have male stylists of course, but they don't generally call themselves "barbers". I'd expect him to take her to a hairdressing salon rather than a barber if he wants her to still have a more typically girlish cut, even if it is a short one.

And hairdressers are not unfamiliar with having to do their best to fix up kids hair that's been cut by themselves or their siblings.

^^^ Second that. I'm a guy and it still bugs me to read a girl taken to a barber to fix her hair. I've been going to this barber for 3 years and haven't even seen a female dog there . Suggest to make it a hairdresser unless there is a reason to go to the barber.

jaus tail said:

Thanks for sharing the hairdresser terminology. I thought girls went to barber like boys, cause they are little girls and what do little girls care about style. Guess I was wrong.

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Oh, you'd be surprised. Even little girls are becoming very aware of how they look in relation to others, and the vast majority of them want to be pretty.

I agree, a girl wouldn't go to a barber for a haircut. Barbers are trained to cut men's hair, not women's. Where I'm at (the southern US) they only cut black men's hair. A white friend was visiting a few years ago and walked into a barbershop without realizing the social implications. He got some pretty hostile attention from the people inside. He received his haircut, along with the clear message that he oughtn't return.

So, basically, we have separate salons for men and women, plus some unisex salons. Some are elite (expensive) and some are budget-friendly. Then we have barbershops for black men and braiding salons for black women. But that's just in the south. I don't know what it's like elsewhere.

A barber cut my hair until I was about eight or nine. A lot of my girl friends also went to a barber. It was a big deal when I went to a 'hair salon' at about age 12, but the main reason was to get my messycurly hair styled and straightened. BUT - a big but - this was in a small town in the 1950's.

So, yes, a girl would go to the hairdresser's or hair salon. There would be alternatives to the pixie cut. Many young women these days have short hair cut and styled similar to a man's style. I know of a few news reporters-anchors with very short hair, styled very attractively. A few writers and actresses, too. So if set in today's time frame, a good hairdresser could probably recommend several alternatives to the pixie cut.

You should Google "short haircuts" or "pixie haircuts" and look at the images that come up. You might get some ideas for your character. Caveat: Be careful about clicking on the images. A lot of hairstyling sites have viruses and malware, so if you click on a picture to visit the original site, you might find yourself in trouble. It's happened to me a couple of times. So look, but don't click!

My nephew once took some scisors and cut his sister's hair. It was pretty ugly. But the barber did a wonderful job. with a layered cut.

My father used to take me to the barber...

There are some famous, gorgeous women who've had pixie cuts at one time or another. Might she take it on as a sort of defiance? These bullies tried to harm her by cutting her hair off but she can turn it into something great in the end.

(I'm a totally unbiased source... I have a pixie cut.)

jaus tail said:

The bully didn't cut her bald. She made a mess out of it and I want the victim to go to a saloon where the barber will suggest her to go bald and then wait for the hair to regrow.

As for how the victim allows her hair to be chopped, well the bully is a lot stronger and slaps the victim, bends her fingers backwards, then kicks her knee twisting her leg at an impossible angle. She then straddles her and chops her hair. The victim cries but isn't as strong.

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I agree with the other posters. She'd be able to chop it up but she wouldn't get it to a stage where she's need to go bald. Go quite short yes, but not bald. Plus, there are always wigs. I am sure a little girl would rather go with a realistic wig than bald and let her hair grow.

Shaving would be very extreme, and the only reason I can think of having to do that would be if the hair was bady matted with glue or something.

And extensions are really expensive - a couple of hundred minimum, so I can't see most parents bothering.

A short crop would be moct common - you'd actually be surprised how often kids cut their own hair into 'interesting' styles. In my daughters class there's at least one kid does it every term.

Australian River said:

I agree with the other posters. She'd be able to chop it up but she wouldn't get it to a stage where she's need to go bald. Go quite short yes, but not bald. Plus, there are always wigs. I am sure a little girl would rather go with a realistic wig than bald and let her hair grow.

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The danger is, if a child is wearing a wig, that someone is going to want to pull it off. A bully. A sibling. Even a friend.

I taught for many years and had several female students over the years who wore wigs. (Mostly for medical reasons.) And yes, getting them torn off by a boy, or even a friend, was quite common. And devastating to the one losing the wig.

(Why would a friend do such a thing? The age I taught, 12-14 years old, girls can be your best best friend one day, and not so much the next day. It happens.)

My daughter gave herself a mullet once. While we were at the barber she remarked that I was taking it well, and related a story about a little girl with beautiful blond hair down to her waist.

She'd gotten into the scissors and cut her own hair. Mom was sobbing. The girl was fine. She'd laid the blades of the scissors flat against her head and basically cut it flat down to skin all along her hairline, four inches back. So (sloppily) shaved the front half of her head.

The barber tried really hard to style it in a way to conceal the damage. They ended up having to shave her. She said the child was fine with it, the mom was the one traumatized by it all.

I imagine the bully could threaten to cut the victim with the scissors if they don't hold still. Even if they didn't, the child being bullied might realize the bully is too strong and be afraid of the scissors cutting their ears or something if they kept fighting back.