How To Change Your Hair
(This blog isn't really about about middle parts or side parts)
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And now, how I changed my hair:
Twitter might be dying, but I do occasionally have some great interactions in that hell hole. My recent favorite came from Stephanie Copley, who asked, “can one of your Substack newsletters be devoted to how to transition from a side part to a middle part? And no, I am not joking.”
Stephanie, it would be my pleasure.
(I am using my hair journey as an example, but I know that middle parts aren’t an option for everybody’s hair. Please insert your own specific change as you read.)
Take stock of your current situation
For most Millennials who came of age in the late 90s/early aughts, middle parts were simply not an option if you wanted to be “cool.” Unless you were Jonathan Taylor Thomas, you ran the risk of looking like Lord Farquaad from Shrek (I just googled it, and it turns out he didn’t actually have a middle part, but it feels like he did).
As a kid, I’d do a middle part to get a laugh out of my friends, the same way I’d go swimming and dive underwater, come up for air with all of my hair in front of my face, flip it back to create a bouffant, and say, “I’m Martha Washington.”
But then Gen Z came along. And some people said, “Hey, what if middle parts were cool?”
It rocked my world the way the return of high-waisted jeans did. When those pants came back into fashion around 2015, I realized that my self-confidence in high school would have been a bajillion times better if I hadn’t felt forced to wear anything that hit below the belly button. I can still see the photos of Kiera Knightly baring her midriff in 2005; they haunted me until I had the adequate language to talk about body image.
I will forever be angry at Big Pant for forcing the Devil’s Waistband upon adolescents in the 2000s.
Let trends inspire you, not direct you
I don’t believe in trends. I believe in taking what you want as you walk down the cereal aisle of life and then carrying it with you. If the cereal suddenly isn’t cool? Doesn’t matter! Keep eating it!
So when the middle part/side part debate began on the internet, I was like, “They will have to lower me into the grave with my hair swung over the left side of my head.”
And then I was like….wait. I think my own stubbornness is holding me back. So I started toying with the idea of a middle part a few months ago; I’d try it in the privacy of my own home, looking at the woman in the mirror whom I didn’t recognize, and think — could I be her?
But also, I’m never wearing low-rise pants again, so you gotta pick and choose which cereals you keep eating and which ones you stop buying.
This newsletter is now filled with entirely too many metaphors.
You don’t have to do it alone unless you want to
By all means, cut your hair yourself, but you can also ask for help. I went to my long-time hair stylist and BFF Walton Nunez. We often have to stop mid-cut for a few minutes because we’re laughing too hard. He recently started cutting hair at one of Sally Hershberger’s salons, and wish I could go back in time to tell my low-rise-jean-wearing, thirteen-year-old self, “Hey, someday you’re going to live in New York City and your friend is going to do your hair at Sally Hershberger.” Maybe I wouldn’t have worried about my future so much.
(That’s a very niche “I made it, Ma” moment. But people my age who also grew up obsessed with magazines might remember those side-bar beauty columns in Allure with titles like, “Hair Advice From The Woman Who Gave Meg Ryan Her Shag.” That woman was Sally. And Walton brought me there. No one succeeds alone.)
When I told Walton of my secret yearning for the hair du jour, he said, “You absolutely can pull that off.”
It’s very validating and liberating to hear someone tell you to go for it. I felt like I’d grown a pair of wings.
Sometimes it’s good to act on impulse
My brain can be a washing machine of thoughts that cycle around, eventually growing so threadbare that they cease to look like clothes and become a pile of tangled threads. But somehow, this time, I didn’t think about all the ways this could go wrong. I thought about the one way it could go right, and before I could psych myself out, I said, “Let’s do it.”
Walton parted my hair down the middle with my nose as a guide, and as my heart thumped out of my chest like I was a cartoon character, he got to work.
Change your hair for yourself, not for anyone else
You don’t have to tell anyone what you’re doing. By all means, consult with your trusted inner circle if you want, but can totally go into your haircut as a Millennial and come out looking like you understand how to make viral TikToks.
The important part comes with how you’re received. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, and when I saw my fiancé after my hair appointment, he greeted me with open arms and said how much he loved my new look. By contrast, I once cut my hair short without telling my then-boyfriend, and he said, “Why did you do that without telling me?”
When you know, you know.
But also — it’s okay if people don’t like it!
My grandmother told me that a middle part looks good on me, but she also thinks too many people are doing it these days. She is an incredible woman who is much trendier then all of her grandchildren. So the fact that she knew we were already spinning past the middle-part hair cycle did not surprise me; she has DVRed every Patriots game and every Bucs game since Tom Brady went to Tampa, makes her own Spotify playlists, and recently showed my cousin how to change settings on Instagram.
“Many people looks like witches with a middle part,” she also said, and I cannot argue. But that’s partly what I’m going for.
If you don’t like it, you can change it again
Most things aren’t forever. My dad often says, “Don’t spiral out about decisions that are reversible.”
What really matters is how it makes you feel
When I changed my hair, it took me a second to adjust, and I will admit that I had a brief moment of panic. But as I looked at myself, I realized I really, really liked it. And then I felt like the most powerful person in the world.
It’s remarkable what happens when you can get out of your own way.
One more thing:
When I went on the Le Batard Show last week, I mentioned that I started my career as an assistant web editor for America’s Test Kitchen. As a result, I still know a lot of useful kitchen tips, like the best way to store herbs. Many people have asked for that tip, so here you go:
In other news, I don’t think I’m doing LinkedIn right, but here’s my new bio:
I am honored!
One problem I have with people changing their hair (and it's my problem and nothing to do with the person who changed their hair) is that two minutes after I see the new hair do, I can not remember how they used to look.
Change your hair today, show me a photo of you from yesterday ... I will SWEAR that it's two different people.