The 5 most annoying hair length stages

1) Long enough to get in your face but too short to tie back

This one was horrible. It might be less annoying for other people, but I have no natural parting and my hair falls straight downwards from the top of my skull. Every day I woke up, I found myself irritated by the hair and had to head directly for a shower and styling session to tame it before I had a fit over the tickling. Of course the use of styling products meant you were forced to shampoo it out in the evenings too, otherwise you would rub the product into your pillow and skin at night. Gross. Headbands didn’t help either for a long period of this; I couldn’t keep them from slipping back if they had to be secured at a point where they still held my hair back. Argh!

2) Classic to knee

This one just never ended?! It took me some 3 years to get from classic to knee length and it was driving me nuts. I have never before had the feeling that my hair just didn’t grow, but I sure felt it from classic to knee! I guess the problem is that it’s a long stretch and it doesn’t have any good “markers” anywhere along the way. Anywhere else you have markers at bones and joints. Instead, your markers are reduced to things like “I think I might be a bit below mid-thigh, but I’m not entirely sure.” It felt like it didn’t really go anywhere until I went for no trims in 2011.

3) BSL to waist

This is one of the major downsides to having thick hair: At lengths where people with thinner hair than you can do a variety of cool and pretty up dos, you’re still hopelessly stuck with simple braids and ponytails. It wasn’t until I hit waist I could do even the simplest cinnamon or Chinese bun.

4) Longer than your arms-length

I know I have covered a lot of the annoyance of the classic to knee, but having outgrown your arms turned out to be quite irritating. It doesn’t matter if its 2 cm or 20 cm longer than my arms-length, it makes handling more difficult. I’ve had to do a few adjustments to be able to handle my hair, but no matter what it’s still a lot more time consuming.

5) Flip length to armpit length

Boring. All I could do was ponytails and holding it back with headbands. It’s a length that is often considered “long” in the rest of the world, but there is so little you can truly do to it. At least I was able to switch from using harsh styling products to leave in conditioner, though.