A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life

It was Coco Channel who originally said, ‘A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life’.

It might not always be true but cutting your hair is a big thing for a woman!

I feel a bit sorry for short haired men who will never experience the feeling of a ‘big hair cut’. A hair cut that makes you look and feel like a whole new person. A cut that, for you anyway, is life changing.

I know that for the rest of the world it’s completely trivial and inconsequential. The first time people see your ‘new do’ might take them by surprise, but within minutes it’s normal and by the end of the day they’ve forgotten what your long hair even looked like.

My old, long locks

Last week I had a proper chop and I seriously feel like it’s changed my life.

I’m not even sure how long it was but it’s gone from waist length to chin length – a MASSIVE change for me.

I’d been sat in the hairdresser’s chair for less than 30 seconds when she gathered my hair into a pony tail and sliced through my locks with a satisfying snip, snip, snip

Years of growing and grooming, styling and spraying and it was all gone. Chop. Just like that.

The hair that had defined my style for so many years was gathered in the hairdresser’s hand like a dead rat and suddenly I couldn’t be happier it was gone.

My short hair, blunt and choppy, swished with a bounce my old hair could never muster.

It was fun. It was cute and I couldn’t help but swish my hair from side to side and feel the short ends brush my cheeks.

The hairdressers went off to mix my colour and make me a cuppa while I sat in front of the mirror, swishing my hair like I was on a L’Oreal ad.

This was such a momentous occasion because cutting my hair was so much more than ‘just cutting my hair’.

Long hair symbolises something. It’s about youth and beauty, health, strength, glamour and a dedication to your appearance. People with long hair care what they look like. They’re well-groomed and gorgeous and pretty much everything I want to be…but I’m not!

I’d love to spend a lot of time getting ready each morning but I had young kids and I work from home. I don’t have the time or patience and really…what’s the point? Why do my hair when I’m going to spend the day sat at my kitchen table?

Every morning I’d been getting up and brushing my ridiculously long hair. I’d wear it down for a whole 3 minutes before it started getting in the way. One of the boys would be waggling their dangerously sticky hands in my direction or Joseph would get a handful and give it a yank. I’d pile it onto my head in a top knot and it would stay there for the rest of the day and I just wished I could just chop it off.

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But there was a reason I’d hung on to my long hair for so long…

I was chatting to a young woman in her early 20s who didn’t realise I have kids.

She was talking about not wanting to have children because she didn’t want to become old and boring and fat and frumpy. All the women she knew who had kids had changed overnight and became these dull, dumpy, mumsy versions of their former selves and, understandably, she didn’t want that!

‘They would cut their hair short and stop caring about what they wear and what they look like,’ she told me while I silently vowed to never cut my hair short in case I was put into that dumpy mummy category.

But I cleared my throat and explained that I have kids and I don’t think I’m dull or dumpy. Yea…the rest of that conversation was kind of awkward!

But that’s the reason I didn’t want to get my hair cut. I didn’t want to be put on the shelf and filed away as ‘someone who became mumsy and boring’. I don’t think of myself like this but, let’s be honest, I doubt anyone does – even if they are!

Yes, I have kids but I don’t think of myself as a mum. I’m still me. The same me I’ve been forever. I’m just me with two little people (who are possibly the best little people to have ever graced the earth).

When I go out without the boys I feel exactly the same as I did three years ago before George was born. When I go on press trips for 2-3 days, a little part of me forgets that I’m a mum. Is that weird? It probably is. I have no idea if other people feel the same or if I’ll appear like a terrible mother for admitting this but it’s true!

Finally making the decision to cut my hair was kind of my admission that yes, I’m a mum and yes, I might be a bit duller than I was three years ago but, do you know what, I’m cool with that.

I’m slightly chubbier and a little softer around the edges (although I’m the first to admit that I’ve done pretty well considering I’ve had 2 kids in 2 years). I’m more tired, I travel less, I rarely stay out past 11pm and I have no idea what’s going on in the world of fashion or celebrity gossip….but I don’t mind. Actually, I don’t even care.

I’m OK with the fact that I’m older and a bit mumsier but it’s taken me a couple of years to be OK with this.

So am I changing my life? Yes and no.

Nothing major is changing but this acceptance is a big change for me.

Moving forwards, Sam is going to be working with me a bit more on The Travel Hack (yey!) We’re going to be taking more family trips, making more videos but taking things a bit slower. You’ll be seeing more from our home in Wales and the trips we get up to around this gorgeous country. There will be more personal posts, more journals, more chatty posts and more ‘normal life’. I’m going to be taking fewer solo trips and no group press trips and this is for a couple of reasons. The main reason is simply because I don’t like leaving the boys. They’ll be in school before I know it so I might as well make the most of these few years where I have them all to myself! But also because press trips are a terrible for bloggers. You’re ferried around from one location to the next and they’re about as authentic as a Pot Noodle.

I’ve spent years flying from one press trip to the next and now it’s time to chill and really enjoy each destination at my own pace. With my kids. And with my new short-haired approach to life.

 

Note to self: Must take better family photos! This is the only family pic I could find! George is crying, Sam is smiling manically, I’m half obscured by the sun and I’ve totally chopped poor little Joseph out!