Ride to the hair salon?

[OakLeaf]

Along the lines of riding in makeup, but a little more particular:

I always feel like it's an insult to my stylist's work if I jam a helmet onto my freshly styled hair, on the way out of the salon. So I don't ride on haircut days - including not riding the m/c into town "up north" where it's not a bicycle-friendly commute.

"Down south," where this'll only be my fourth cut with this stylist (seven, count 'em other stylists left me, by the end of it, literally in tears they cut my hair so ugly), I'm also a little afraid of walking in with helmet hair and having him think I don't care how it looks.

Am I being silly?

[Pax]

If you want to send a specific message to your stylist that's one way to do it. Another might be to drive to your next appointment and let her know you'll be riding your bike to future appointments as you enjoy running your errands by bike. Who knows, maybe you'll inspire her to ride.

[bean fidhleir]

It doesn't sound silly to me. It sounds like you care about your new stylist's feelings. I might do as Queen suggested and tell the stylist about your commitment to your bike. He might actually have suggestions about a style that will look good even after being helmeted!

[Grog]

It's not silly, I think. On the other hand, you need to let your stylist know the truth about how you manage your hair. I have finally found a stylist that does not assume I will be spending 15-30 minutes styling it every morning so it looks like what he did in the salon. He knows I ride my bike a lot and that the hair has to look decent when I take off my helmet and give it a quick brush up, and that I don't like having short strands that poke out of my helmet's vents. He's come up with a low-maintenance style that works for me. I'm very grateful for that.

[indysteel]

In my opinion, so long as you pay and tip the stylist for the freshly styled hair, he/she probably could care less about what you do to it afterwards. And if they do, I'd be worried about whether they're also going to be overly sensitive to any constructive criticism. After a few bad stylists, I finally settled on one that respected the fact that it's MY hair and MY money. While I respect her and her work, her ego should have little to do with it.

As you continue to work with this new stylist and get comfortable with a particular cut/style, then you might just admit to him that you don't need him to really do a full style at the end because you're cycling home. My stylist will often ask me what I want her to do stylingwise. If I'm just going home, she'll often just blow it dry and leave it at that.

[Geonz]

How much do *you* care about it getting helmeted?

Confession: It has been 8 months since my last haircut. I keep waiting so long that I'm afraid Jennifer will have left, if I'm even remembering her name right.

I explained that I needed somethign really, really, really simple 'cause I stuffed my helmet on my head and rode to work. We found soemthing in a magazine that she said would work.

While she was snipping away, they got to talking about some of their clients - not gossiping, just who'd come in and what they'd done to their hair and that sort of thing, and I realized that the clients in question were coming in from the apartments next door where folks had caseworkers to help them with living skills, and getting jobs, and remembering to comb their hair.... and I realized I was in the right place and, indeed, this was a style that did *not* require care No fancy blow dry or "just a little curl" or "you can do this with mousse and gel..." HOoray!

Okay, okay, I gotta make the call. It's going to get warm and I won't want long hair... it's just about at the Jackson Browne stage...make it light brown with almost exactly that much grey and mirror image and *that is my hair*

[shootingstar]

Sometimes I'll ride to and from hairstylist. With an experienced stylist, they aren't insulted. The ones I've had for several years each, try to find a cut that fits my lifestyle, including the helmet.

And stylist frequently remarks positively about my cycling and wanting to be healthy.

[KnottedYet]

"If my career were a hairstyle, it would be helmet head." -Laura Dern

[Grog]

"Life is full of challenge and frustration. But sooner or later you'll find the hairstyle you like."

Check this out (non-cycling content alert):
http://www.furrylogicbooks.com/originals.php