Did I ever tell you about the time I was hooked on the world’s most asshole-y hairdresser? Dude was a snide, handsy creep and took ten hours to give you a hair cut but when he got it right, you walked out looking like a million bucks – which is pretty much what it cost to see him. When he got it wrong, however, it was baaaaaad. Soooo baaaad, you guys. And you never knew what you going to get – not because life was a box of chocolates – but because Erratic Hair Dude was a major drug addict.
I’m sure I’ve told this tale before, but one time, EHD was sooo off his face that he forgot me in a bleach bath. (Yep, I let him do my colour too.) The result was hair as white as whatever he was hoovering up his nose. The kind of hair that had the texture of candyfloss. The kind of hair that was almost impossible to detangle without breaking when wet. The kind of hair that made you a freakin’ expert on all things hair repair-y overnight. Like, seriously. Ignore anyone who tells you they’re a trichologist. I have a hard knocks phD(rama) in hair repair, okay?
Because I’m a giver, I’m going to condense all my wild nights of tearful Googling research into a crash course for you. Is jy reg?
When hair is damaged, be it due to chemicals or heat styling, it loses keratin, the protein that essentially makes up your hair. The structure on the inside of the hair shaft looks like it’s been nibbled at by evil good hair hating mice and the “scales” that cover it aren’t lying flat. It’s these ruffled scales that create a rough texture that allows moisture to escape from your hair as well as your eyes via fits of hysterical tearfulness.
Now here’s the sucker-punch. Your hair CAN’T repair itself. Keratin does NOT grow back. You can only grow fresh, healthy hair from the root.
While growing out the damage you can do two things: 1) Get your rich dad to pay his dodgiest factory workers to kneecap the hairdresser who hurt you. 2) Fortify, re-hydrate and seal your damaged hair strands with protein, lipids and silicone.
The protein bit is important. While it can’t permanently replace the keratin that you’ve lost, it can bind to it and act a bit like Polyfilla. Ingredients to look out for include keratin, wheat protein, silk protein and collagen. Often they’ll be ‘hydrolised’ which is really just a fancy word for ‘made smaller so they can penetrate the hair shaft’. As for lipids, this is anything moisturising like plant butters and oils and silicone is just mos silicone. The latter is the ultimate sealant that’ll smooth down those scruffy scales, trap your newfound lipids and help you fake a healthy-looking shine.
As none of these vital reparative ingredients are expensive there is NO NEED to blow your budget on a R2000 hair mask. The savvier way to roll is to rather bite the bullet and get a professional in-salon treatment that promises to repair broken hair bonds. Once that’s done, snap up a pocket-friendly mask that serves up the holy trinity (keratin, oils and silicone) for a snip. Something like the effective yet #budgetbabe gems that are Schwarzkopf Gliss Hair Repair Oil Replacement treatments (R94,99, Clicks).
I’m still roaming around Asia (where finding a hairdresser who understands blonde hair is tough) but am blonder than ever thanks to blasting my hair with bleaching spray. That plus a string of overchlorinated resort pools could’ve had a terrible effect on my hair but it’s actually looking and feeling great thanks to two of Schwarzkopf’s new treatments – Ultimate Oil Elixir (yellow tube) and Ultimate Repair (black tube). Both contain very similar ingredients, including the magic trio that is keratin, oils and silicone and I honest to God can’t tell them apart. The only real difference I can spot between the two is that Ultimate Repair contains almond oil and Ultimate Oil Elixer contains almond PLUS argan oil. Whichever I use, the end result is the same. Swishy, shiny, easy-to-detangle and healthy-looking hair. The only one that didn’t work for me was the Million Gloss (blue tube) as it was a bit too heavy on the silicone side of things. Not great for me as I’ve got very fine hair that gets weighed down easily, but BRILLIANT for anyone with dry, frizzy hair type.
Anyhoo, let’s get this competition going, shall we? I’m giving away a Schwarzkopf hair care hamper tailored to suit your hair type worth R750! To enter, just leave a comment below telling me about The Worst Hair Cut/Dye Job of your Life and what you did to overcome it. Six months in a hat? Medicinal G&Ts? Be brave, my darlings. I want to hear your stories of survival.
Love, love
Leigh
This competition is now closed. Congratulations to winner Ashini Padayachee.
Lipgloss is my Life 
A disaster when I bought and tried a Box dye at home. It was supposed to turn out a soft shade of Red but it turned out Flaming Red hahaha. It was a Saturday evening and I was helpless as the stores where closed to try to buy another colour to sort out my mess and to make matters worse I had to attend church the following morning.
Well guess who went to church on a hot summer’s morning with a beanie on her head.. yep that’s me. It sure helped to cover my red hair.
Never again will I attempt to colour my hair on my own. Lesson learnt.
One time I cut my hair 1 length straight cut at the end. Instead of the hairdresser using scissors to cut and shape the bottom end perfectly she used a hair cut machine that’s used to shave of men’s hair. After a year had to change salon. Hair grew out then the new hair dresser cut my hair to perfection
My worst when I was in high school and Toni Braxton was all the hype ❤ I very stupidly cut my own hair. Well more like butchered it as I have no hair cutting skills at all. End result, I was suspended from school for a week till my hair grew to a decent amount (nothing could happen in a week), faced the wrath of my parents, got a 1 week vacay from home and school work (was a win for me). Took about 3 months for my hair to look remotely decent again. Being young and dumb…. lol the good old days. Hard lesson learnt 😉
When I was 16 I done red highlights but it turned out bright pink. It looked horrible. I basically wore a hat or scarf for a few months because my mum refused to pay again to get it redone
My worst hair disaster was partly my fault and partly my brothers. While at school I begged my mom to let me have a perm. BAD MISTAKE! We then went on holiday where my brother and I had a huge fight which resulted in him cutting off half of my hair on one side. So I had to spend the rest of the holiday with badly permed, lopsided hair. Not my best moment!
This story is wild! I’d legit have ended up in juvie after murdering that boy 🙈🙈🙈
My worst hair disaster was when I decided to color my hair blue.
I followed the instructions to a tee.
To cut a long story short.
The end result was disappointing.
There was NO blue hair.
It never took.
Washed right out down the drain.
I will never forget (or forgive) the hairdresser that maimed my hair shortly before my std 9 (grade 11) dance… I bought in a cute ‘Sweet Home Alabama’/ Reese Witherspoon picture and asked for a replica of that do (we all know the short bob with the spiky ends).
Well this hairdresser cut by hair to my eyebrows!!! instead of my jawline… I cried for weeks, begged my father to buy me a wig and was banned from leaving the house until my eyes weren’t puffy and red from all the crying. I HATED it (the captials are definitely needed to explain my hatred of this style)!
My other horrid hair experience was pretty much the same as yours, a hairdresser ruined by long hair with bleach (I’m a chameleon when it comes to hair and had never had a problem like this before). I managed to get through that with coconut oil, a tangle teezer and (not kidding) Schwarzkopf products. It took forever to get manageable hair back but thankfully with the right hair-care, I didn’t suffer too much breakages.
When I was grade 9 I had enough of my long frizzy corse hair went to my best friend first we used a kitchen knife then a a razor blade to cut it’s a pity I don’t have a photo I look a prisoner of war I used a stock inh to hide it from my dad who was furious.
I would absolutely love to win this so I can prepare my hair for my wedding day to have nice and luxurious locks on the wedding day!
I decided to give myself a few blond highlights. Please note – ‘give myself’, alone, no help. So I grabbed some kair highlite kit mixture, foil and a mirror and proceeded to smear blue peroxide mix on random bits on my hair followed with a foil wrap around each strand. Needless to say, 40 minutes later I had orange/yellow patches (and ‘spikkels’) all over my hair and no hairdresser on speed dial. So I bbm’d (yes, THAT long ago) a dude, who knows a dude, who’s sister is a hairdresser (it’s PE, everyone know’s someone who knows someone) and managed to get an appointment with her the next day. And she gave me the best hightlighted head of hair ever, I swear no body ever came close!
Side note: I was 26, you’d thought I know better
Side side note: I’m now engaged to the dude who’s sister fixed my hair, good thing he didn’t see me BEFORE I went to his sister, and pity she’s not a hairdresser anymore 😦
I have more than enough disastrous stories about my hair…
This story however is about my daughter… she had hair down to her hip which she hated brushing… I decided to just cut it off the matted pony. The poor soul sobbed hugging her hair until her father returned from playing football. He was furious…. I told him that he asked me to cut it off… he was totally confused and thought he forgot. I blamed him and he had to fit the bill for my daughter and my(I was emotionally stressed 🙂 ) salon visit. Hahahaha…
In my 20’s i really wanted red hair with a brown undertone🙈 why i don’t know🙈 needless to say my hair turned pink and it was a head Turner but not for the right reasons. I had to go back to the salon make them colour my hair black and i went for numerous treatments, cut chunks of my hair off🙈 i never tried to get that colour combination again😂😂
A recent cut. Told the stylist to leave it long enough to tie into a ponytail. When she was finished she said “As jy regtig wil, kan jy dit vasbind.” No. Couldn’t for eight long weeks!
My worst hair moment unfortunately was self inflicted. LMAO
I bought a magazine that had a hair dye box of a brand I have never seen or heard of before….. Yes! Im an idiot!
I used it, I read the inside pamphlet, lined up all the tiny bottles in order and I was confident, first time dying my own hair and I decided to use a silly box.
I read that leaflet twice, wore the science gloves and got to it.
5minutes into the stipulated time, u started to itch, I scratched and carried on.
The timer went off and I washed my hair, used the conditioner and thought ja! I’m going to be Beyoncé
The dye came out very light on some areas and very dark on some areas, it was dramatic. The colour said chocolate brown but my hair was a colour mohawk.
Almost a autumn leaf brown on the sides and super brown in the middle.
U was traumatized and wore headwraps for 6weeks.
I went to a new hairdresser who cut my hair into a pageboy cut. Yes – A PAGEBOY. From a bob. I immediately went to another hairdresser to try and fix it and wept solidly for a week.
My worst hair moment was done to myself by myself. Sigh. Lol. So I bought an at home dye kit -beautiful wine red shade, hoping to warm up my hair colour. I followed the instructions to the T BUT when I rinsed out the dye and blowdried my hair, it was pitch black! Wine red se foot. Gosh I was super sad. It was a semi permanent dye and apparently gets darker the longer you keep it on. Had to wait for it to grow out. Did not dye my hair for 2 years after that 😂🤣. But hey you live and learn? 🙈
What is it with mothers and 90’s haircuts. Invited to THE party of the year when I was in school. And my mum directs the hairdresser how to cut my hair. Ended up looking like someone put a bowl over my head and decided to cut my hair. Needless to say I wore a gazillion hair grips and an Alice band to hide the disaster and didn’t dare speak to the guy I had a crush on
Aaaai my worst hair experience was when I was younger and didn’t brush my long hair for a week. It was sooooooo “gekoek” that no brush could go through it (crying face). My mom took a scissors and just started cutting all the knots out (how in the heaven I don’t know). SO this obviously resulted in no style, after cutting all the knots I ended up with a boys cut (HELP) – sooo embarrassing. I have never gotten that lazy to forget to brush my hair again hahahahaaaaa.
Peroxiding may own hair in my teens, I ended up with yellow, straw-like hair and actually stayed out of school for a week before my mom allowed me dye it back to its natural colour.
Thinking I’m so gorgeous and funky that I could easily rock a crew cut then coming home and seeing my husband’s face and listening him try to stammer something out that wouldn’t get him murdered. Was a low moment for me😆
So two years ago I wanted to dye my hair a darker brown (I already have dark hair but I wanted to go darker for no reason lol). So I bought hair colour, I can’t remember the brand. Now it was my first time ever dying my hair, and I knew nothing about it but I asked my mom to do it for me. She wasn’t a fan of the idea but we she agreed anyway. She told me we don’t know what undertones you have but we hope for the best. So I put the colour on and rinsed it out and blew my hair. Instead of dark brown it was a light orange/brown colour. Almost copper. It didn’t look too bad. The next day I had campus, and when my friends saw me they started laughing. When I stood in the sun my hair was a bright orange copper colour and they said I looked like a copper tin man 😂 that evening my mom bought a different brand, dark brown dye and redid my hair but you could still see the orange! I had to just live with my tin man head until it grew out.
My worst hair cut moment is when I decided to cut my own hair in Layers after watching a few YouTube videos… And guess what.. I decided to try this at work during my lunch break.. Did I ever screech so loud.. It looked as tho I had a mullet for the whoke week.. And mum refused to to take me to the hairdressers to fix my problem and made me wait until the weekend… My hairdresser laughed her sock soff then scolded me for no more and tried to fix my horrid mistake.. From having hair length that was below my shoulders to a pixie cut.. Never again did I ever attempt to even trim my own split ends
My sister studied hairdressing and she required a model. Fortunately for her I volunteered, at first it was going great, had my hair washed and towel dried, then my hair started getting dry and with all curly hair the length doesn’t seem as it is. So as the cutting ended, I ended up with a lop sided hair cut and a stomach so sore because of all the lol 😂
Decided to get a fringe a few years back and my hairdresser at the time ( I never went back)just went haywire. I was left with this 3 cm short thing that just looked awful! So I clipped it up till it grew back to a respectable length, but that piece of hair has never acted normal again….
Definitely peroxiding my hair in my youth and it turning a ghastly orange and burning my scalp – as a result, shaved all hair of head – loved it!
Aaaai my worst hair experience was when I was younger and didn’t brush my long hair for a week. It was sooooooo “gekoek” that no brush could go through it (crying face). My mom took a scissors and just started cutting all the knots out (how in the heaven I don’t know). SO this obviously resulted in no style, after cutting all the knots I ended up with a boys cut (HELP) – sooo embarrassing. I have never gotten that lazy to forget to brush my hair again hahahahaaaaa.
The worst experience i had with my hair was when after giving birth to my brand new baby i felt for a change so i was like ok lets dye my hair so i can look much more better. Oh my freaken word!! What a nightmare! My hair came out super dry it looked so grose and guess wat i had orange hair yes orange hair i nearly died. I battled with my hair after that when i washed it the water was orange and i felt like such a failure coz all i wanted was to look pretty lol instead of a tired mom. Well it was a long process. I had to buy a dark colour to dye it over so i went with a dark brown. Then i had to find a hair product to save me from my dry ugly hair and till today im using the argan oil to help with shine and treating my hair. I havent dyed my hair since.
I bought box dye – it said light brown (I am blonde) and it came out almost black!!! I lived with it for many months, embracing my different look, knowing that it will eventually grow out or fade and it did .
Way back when, they bought out those Do-it-at-home highlighting kits. It came with a little brush thing, so you just brushed on the PERMANENT hair-dye and lived your best life afterwards. Easy? NO.
My young teenage self did it all herself, brushing away and envisioning how FABUHLISS I was going to look and all the boys would love it.
I MADE MYSELF INTO A CHEETAH. My previously untouched brunette hair was scarred with PATCHES of BLONDE “highlight” in it.
My mother thought it was hilarious and I got an “I told you so” plus, I had to leave it to grow out much to my mothers further amusement. It was a rough time. The boys did not love it
My worse salon experience was back in 2011, I had absolutely long hair… It actually reached my butt, it was my pride and joy. Long, thick and black. My niece was getting married so I decided to something different. Went in to a new salon as they had amazing offers. I asked for layers. Some how the girl managed to reverse the layers, so the shortest layer was on the underside of my hair and the longest was on the outside. I had to cut all of my hair to the shortest. I was absolutely angry and disheartened… I looked like a boy from the 70s…
I once tried to dye my hair blonde with a well known hair brand two days before my 21st birthday. All I can say is my hair was very dry and corse thereafter and I couldn’t even comb it. Worse of all it didn’t even look blonde at all! I had to go to a professional hairdresser who used salon dye on my hair and made it a brown colour. I was in that chair for almost three hours.I was literally crying. I learned my lesson not to trust any brand also to seek help when I’m stuck (pun intended )
I have done so many stupid dye box disasters, I couldn’t count how many times. But my worst ever hair experience was the time my mom had my hair cut at the hairdresser into a short layered cut. Now this was the early 90s and she was obsessed with 80s hair, had straight hair and wanted curly and I had curly hair. This cut made me look like Bea Arthur in the The Golden Girls and I knew it. The first day back at school and I ran away and hid in the playground and didn’t go into class. It was a whole thing, everyone was searching for me. I was “missing”, but was eventually found. By the way this was in pre-school, I was probably 5. My mom learned never to inflict haircuts on me against my will ever again.
Where do I begin
I Wanted to go full silver.
Now no one told me that I had to bleach my hair until it’s about to die off .
So that happen and my hair took like two years to grow the perfect length so that I could cut all the dry, damaged hair.
Don’t bleach if you have thin hair, dark hair 🤦🏻♀️
24 hours before our first overseas trip together – to the Maldives, I went for “budget” highlights at a little unknown salon…. the stylist left the colour in for too long – it started burning my scalp and I think it was actually bubbling on my head…. I screeched – was rushed to the basin, but it was too late – my hair was bleached beyond belief, and was so dry that it was impossible to get a comb through it. This was a long time ago and before oils etc. On arrival in the Maldives, I was horrified to discover that the water is very hard/brakish – which hand in hand with the sea water, was just the worst thing ever. My husband, then boyfriend, devised an ingeneous method of tapping of the water that came out of the air conditioner – it was pure, soft and a total life saver as a daily rinse.
Wanted blonde highlights as per usual but had just moved to Rustenburg of all places. It turned bright orange. I cried big fat ugly tears in the salon. The manager said I must come every 2 days for treatments and she would get it right. I walked around with a hat. The orange just would not go away. Had to cut off all my hair very very short and dye it brown…..it was a disaster of note! I hate short hair for me. I mean what the actual flip man!!!! We moved to another house a year later and guess who my neighbour was? Yes that same hairdresser!
Hi I randomly came across this article or blog but I’m a man……..lol…..this is probably targeted to women but okay here goes…….I had smoot long hair up until age 10 or 11 and then washed my with handy andy as a joke back then (i was a kid)……hair is now extremely bad and I’m 31 at the moment…….its very bad meaning roots probably damaged………have been searching for solution for years but no luck…….my hair is growing extremely damaged……using a schwarzkopf shampoo & conditioner at the moment which does make hair soft but long lasting problem in root is probably the main concern
Hi DMAN! I laughed at your Handy Andy hair wash but it’s not likely to be the cause of your hair’s condition today. That damaged childhood hair has grown out years ago and, if you’d damaged your follicles, you’d have ended up in the hospital with burns on your scalp. I suspect the change in your hair type is simply due to growing up. Many people find their hair’s colour and texture changes as they move into adulthood. A lot of it has to do with hormones. My suggestion is that you accept that your hair’s texture etc is simply the way you’ve been made and find ways to keep it in the best condition possible. If Schwarzkopf is working for you, that’s great. You could also consider an in-salon Brazilian-style straightening treatment for more permanent straightness and smoothness that should last about 4 months provided you use a sulphate-free shampoo to slow it’s eventual washing out. Wishing you lots of good hair days! Leigh x
lol thanks for the reply…..I understand the science behind it yes but its a bit strange to grasp since i’m in a family with all straight lol but I guess its hormones so probably have to accept it…….any recommendations for the Schwarzkopf oil replacement product in terms of apply then blow and then straightening/flat iron?…… is it similar to keratin treatment because the packing says keratin but the price is R70 for a 200ml which is very cheap but I must say my hair feels quite good since using the Ultimate repair shampoo & conditioner from Schwarzkopf so who know!