The warning, “Cut more than an inch off my hair and I’m calling the police,” was ringing in my teenage daughter’s ears as I let her loose on my long, messy mop with a pair of sharp scissors.
If TV’s Holly Willoughby is brave enough to let her eight-year-old son, Chester, practise his hairdressing skills on her million-pound locks, who am I to stand in the way of my nearly-14-year-old Jesse cutting off a few split ends?
The This Morning host modelled her new choppy look yesterday after sharing a short clip with her millions of followers which showed her son’s little hands shaking as he cautiously snipped several inches off her locks.
In contrast, my teenager was keen to get all Edward Scissorhands on my locks, and I had to read her the riot act: “This is real hair. You can’t stick my hair back on like your dolls.”
And unlike Holly’s experience there was no professional on standby should Jesse’s efforts go wrong. The TV star also didn’t have to wash her own hair, rustle up her own cup of tea, or make pleasant small talk with herself.
Instead I received personal abuse from my hairdresser. She ripped lumps out of my head trying to get a comb through my wet barnet and moaned: “Don’t you ever brush your hair? It’s like trying to comb tumbleweed.”
If I didn’t know better, I could swear she was trying to get me back for all those times I’d scraped her head with a nit comb! Once she’d got my hair hanging straight, the teenage terror got straight to work with the scissors.
“Errrr… I think you’re supposed to section it first before starting to cut,” I tried to give her some helpful advice.
But I’d forgotten that teenagers actually KNOW EVERYTHING, so I just let her get on with the job.
After a few minutes, she went all quiet and I could feel something had gone wrong and I began to panic.
Taking a photo with her phone to show me the back, she laughed as she said: “I was just trying to shape it nicely but I think I cut too much off one side.”
“OMIGOD what have you done?” I shrieked. “You’ve given me a wonky haircut!”
I wasn’t about to let her make a bad job even worse, so I sacked the teen on the spot, and she just shrugged and went to hunt for snacks in the fridge instead.
I assessed the damage as I blow-dried my own hair.
As we all know, a good blow-dry can cover up a bad cut, but no amount of styling was going to fix my wonky hairdo.
However it’s fair to say the teenager did show remarkable restraint – she only cut an inch off as I’d requested.
Except for the other side of my hair – which is now shorter by two inches.
“Hey at least I’ve got rid of all your split ends,” my daughter tried to defend her handiwork.
Raising an eyebrow, I replied, “Hey here’s a tip.” And as she turned expectantly, I said cuttingly: “Don’t go into hairdressing!”
