Friend Friday: Hair Care - the long and the short of it

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Friend Friday. This is an opportunity for fashion and beauty bloggers to share their thoughts on a specific topic and read what others have to say on it. Here are my answers to this week's 5 questions on the subject of hair care.

Click here on Modly Chic to read all the responses. [linkup broken]

Before I go into my answers, I must tell you my hair saga. I had long hair ever since I convinced my mom that "I could take care of it" (I was perhaps seven). I NEVER would have voluntarily gone short, but now that I have, I don't think I'll go back to long.

What caused me to go short?

CANCER! -- I was diagnosed with stage IIIc breast cancer on June 2, 2010. (Ladies -- do NOT ignore any lumps!!!)
I was destined for the works: mastectomy, chemo + radiation. Since it was all going to fall out anyway, and I knew post-surgery long hair would be a pain to deal with, I went with my pal Dez to her salon in Whittier. (Before and After pix at top).
The next day I was surprised to discover my dad's hair on my head! Same cowlick and everything! It was surprisingly thick.

I started chemo on July 27. Twenty days later, my hair started feeling strangely "crunchy" and dead and on August 18, my boyfriend shaved it all off for me (he's an expert, as you can see)

if we had a band, we could call it Eight Eyes

It's growing back in kind of wavy, just like "they" said it would. It sort of looks like my mom's hair these days...

And now, my answers to the questions:

How often do you get your hair cut?
As often as I can. I've gone short with a vengeance.

Do you go to the same stylist each time, try someone new, go to the 
cheap hair cutting chains or live it up in a salon?
For my "first" cut (trim really) I drove 120 miles to my friend Leslie's. Good excuse to visit. And she's great at cutting short hair!

"first" hair cut: 4-1

For my next trim, I'm going to try a branch of Floyd's Barbershop. We'll see how that goes.

Do you color your hair? How often? What’s your natural color? 

Never ever colored or permed my hair. 100% virgin salt + pepper.

The one thing you always do to keep your hair looking great is: 

Wash it with Neutrogena anti-residue and condition with H2O Spa Sea Marine. Used these both when it was long too. I'm very particular about the scent of beauty products - the Neutrogena is very neutral, the H20 pleasant (did not like the performance of H20 shampoo). Finding the right conditioner was difficult when my hair was long - I'd find one and then it would get discontinued. The H20 worked well keeping it straight, relaxed, smooth and shiny. Now it's not such a big deal but I still like how it smells.

What hair trend do you love and wish you could rock?
I actually briefly attained the short hair look I wanted when my hair was growing back: short pixie ala Jean Seberg or Mia Farrow

photo source

My mom saw this photo and said I looked like a prisoner
ok, maybe it IS a tad short

I saw this look recently and it's my new hair goal:

photo source

(I know, it won't lay flat like this... but a gal can dream!)