Why We Turned On The Clippers And Didn’t Stop Until Our Hair Was Gone
If you’ve stumbled onto this blogpost, you’re probably contemplating if you should shave your head. The answer? Only you know! While society often frowns on people who are not men having shaved heads, it’s an act to embrace that can leave you feeling empowered and rejuvenated. In this post you’ll read three stories from different perspectives on why these individuals shaved their heads, and how they felt afterwords.
The first story is told by Dianni Hall, a travel blogger who shaved her head while traveling in India.
I had wanted to shave my head for a while. It just felt like something I needed to do and I saw how radiant and beautiful so many women looked once they had done it.
I was hesitant for many reasons, mainly having to do with what others would think. But being at Shakti Ashram in Varkala, India, surrounded by gorgeous souls, the timing felt right. Plus Elena (one of the girls at the ashram) had done it already and I promised her I would do it with her. The actual process of shaving my head felt amazing, and I had decided before-hand to do it myself. It felt so good to clear all of that energy. Immediately after though, I felt a bit of regret.
That doesn’t mean that the reason I did it didn’t still mean anything to me – because it did – but my ego began to get in the way. I had spent so much of my life so attached to my hair. Having big curly hair, it was always the focal point of my beauty. I always received compliments and admiration because of hair. My hair made me feel beautiful.
Once I had released that, for a day or two I didn’t feel beautiful. I felt kind of ugly, to be honest. But, with all the amazing supportive people I had around me, I began to look in the mirror and really truly see myself. Without hiding, without covering anything, just me. Now, a few days later after doing it, I feel free, liberated, and new. I laugh a little when I walk down the road and get disapproving stares from men because I used to care what they thought about how I looked. Now, I know that I’m a strong ass woman with or without hair and I could not care less what other people think, because I feel fucking beautiful.
Why I Shaved My Head
As women, we grow up with tons of expectations placed on us. We are expected to behave a certain way, talk a certain way, dress a certain way, and especially look a certain way. I can only speak about my experience and I was born and raised in the good old USA. But, no matter what country you’re from, you know that America is notorious for making women feel guilty and ashamed for not looking like Kylie Jenner or Kim Kardashian. I struggled for a long time with low self-esteem and lack of confidence before I learned how to feel beautiful. It can be hard to find that beauty within yourself when society is telling you that the way you look is wrong. So I decided to stop. To stop comparing myself to the famous Instagram models with perfect hair, faces, and bodies and chose to discover my own beauty…. by shaving my head.
Find Dianni’s Instagram post here.
It sounds drastic, I know, and I am not at all saying that you need to shave your head in order to feel beautiful. It was just my preferred method. See, it wasn’t that I didn’t feel beautiful with hair, because I did. The issue was that I felt beautiful because of my hair. I have (or had) gorgeous, wild, light brown curly hair. My hair made me feel sexy, it made me feel unique, it gave me courage, and it made me beautiful. I would feed off of people giving me compliments about how stunning my hair is and listen to how they wish they could get their hair to look like mine. I knew I had amazing hair and I was okay with letting that be the reason I felt beautiful since I didn’t feel beautiful about any other part of myself. Until a little over a year ago, I began doing some personal development and inner work, leading me to want to become the best version of myself. I won’t get into all the details of my inner healing, but for some reason about six months ago, I decided that shaving my head was something I wanted to experience.
The time never fully felt right until about two weeks ago. I should also probably include the fact that I am currently living at an all-female Ashram in Varkala, India. I’m surrounded by amazing beautiful women with a passion and fire for living a fulfilling authentic life — it’s an electric environment. On one particular night, Elena (one of the girls staying that the ashram) came out of her room with a beautiful bald head. I was stunned by how captivating she looked, glowing and lighting up the room. I was quickly reminded that a week prior I had told her that if she shaved her head I would do it with her! (Oh, regret) I looked around to see a group of girls belly laughing, playing guitar and screaming the lyrics to Hey There Delilah or something similar. I felt such vibrant energy that I knew it was time. So I told the girls I would do it, got the clippers and found myself standing in front of the mirror with my heart pounding. I was terrified. But, if I made it halfway across the world on my own then I could also shave my head, right? So I took the clippers and just started buzzing away.
I’m not sure what I was expecting to feel at that moment. I guess I thought I would cry or gain some kind of superpowers from my newly bald head, but sadly that did not happen. Instead, I felt a ting of… regret. All that was repeatedly playing in my mind was… “Oh shit, what have I done?” It didn’t help that everyone began flooding me with questions, asking specifically about how I felt. Well, fuck. I knew they were expecting me to say something profound about how free and amazing I felt, but I didn’t have any of that in me. So my answer was, “It feels good, but is different and I think I just need to get used to it.” It wasn’t a lie.
After a day or two of being in a constant state of mild panic, I looked in the mirror and felt beautiful… without my hair. Everyone was constantly reassuring me that I looked amazing and compliments are great and all, but I didn’t feel beautiful until that moment. I had looked in the mirror and saw myself, all of myself in the most authentic and raw form I have ever seen myself. Stripped of anything to hide behind, I was just looking at me and I loved it. I felt god damn gorgeous. It’s hard to explain how much of a big deal this was for me. After having associated my beauty with my hair for so long, being able to look at myself as a bald woman and still feel beautiful was life-changing.
I am a woman who is bald by choice, that’s not what the traditional definition of a beautiful female entails. I’ve learned that being feminine doesn’t mean having long hair or wearing make up. There’s a new level of confidence I’ve obtained by being able to love this version of myself. I live for when men stare at my bald head while I walk down the street or say, “Why’d you cut your hair, you had such beautiful hair.” This question allows me to put on my biggest smile and just respond with, “Because I wanted to.” It sounds so simple, I know. But, it feels so good to blatantly say, “Fuck your beauty standards and expectations for my body. This is my body.” And to think, all I had to do was shave my head.
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The next story is by Calen Otto, the creator of the Unruly Travel & Living blog.
Why did I shave off all of my hair? Well, there were many reasons, with the push over the edge being very unpoetic.
I had no idea what heat really was until I was spending the summer in Thailand, with long, curly, thick hair and no air conditioning. After spending a week at Elephant Nature Park, and putting little effort into my hair care (I mean, how could I spend time on that when there are giant beauties roaming around?!) my hair was a tangled mess.
By the time that we made it to our hostel in Chiang Mai outside of the park, untangling my hair was quite the task. One morning I woke up in my bunk and declared to my friend Anne, and then to our new found traveler friends, that I wanted to shave off my hair… that day. After the words left my mouth, there was no retracting them. Everyone was thrilled and supportive as we scoured through a close by outlet mall to find a hairdresser.
Although the heat was the driving force in that moment to ditch the curls, I had been thinking about it for the couple months. My yoga practice, therapy, meditation, and incredible support from unruly friends and comrades had encouraged me to think about who I am and what that means. We often relate much of who we are to how we look, what we have, and how others perceive us. We too often award ourselves value based on our physical body and appearance, and how others relate to those. When I was honest with myself, I realized that I did that with my hair.
Having long, beautiful, strong, think, and curly hair meant that I could hide behind it easily. I could leave my hair down to hide some of my face, occasional blushing, and facial expressions that seem to take over my face so easily to represent my emotions. I end up being an open book weather I’m willing to or not. If I didn’t feel beautiful or wasn’t really loving myself because I felt ugly or inadequate, or not living up to some socially enforced beauty standard, I could say, “Well, Calen, at least you have nice hair.”
How many times do we suppress and mindlessly forget jabs that we throw at our own-selves by saying “Well, at least I have [Insert: nice hair, ‘great’ legs, some material gain].”? I didn’t want to be able to do it anymore. I wanted to really get into the nitty-gritty of how I felt about myself, and my appearance, and why. I knew it wold be easier with my ascetic shield gone.
And it was. The whole ongoing process wasn’t easy, but it peeled back layers of protection that I had been growing my whole life. The act made it easier to get in touch with myself and ask the serious questions about my core personhood, queerness, gender, and being.
The whole time that my hair was being shaved off I never opened my eyes or stole a glimpse in the mirror. I was too terrified. It was just hair, but it felt like so much more. I waited until the very end– crying, laughing, and sweating like mad the whole time.
If you’re ready to watch the adventure, Anne filmed it for your viewing pleasure and I created a video to share. I hope that it takes you through the same emotional ride that I rode. Oh, and next time that you find yourself in another country, feeling the urge to shave off your hair, think deeply and then go for it!
Learn what travel taught me about body hair, masturbation, and hooking up on the road.
Thank you Daniel Turbert for capturing the cover photo of me above in Colombia!
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The last story is by Charlie Sudlow-Maestas, a queer artist and educator.
On August 26th, I was sitting on the couch with my partner. Running my fingers through my hair, I looked at him and asked, “Will you help me shave my hair?” Stunned, he looked at me, “Right now?” I nodded my head and we hopped up, headed to the bathroom, and turned on the razor. The first swipe was right down the middle so that I wouldn’t be able to change my mind. My dyed-red locks fell to the ground and with them, the pressure to conform to what others expected of me.
I had wanted to shave my hair off for years. As a fiercely out trans nonbinary person, I craved that androgynous look that a shaved head gave (not that everyone who shaves their head is androgynous, but for me, androgyny is a desired look). At this time, I was growing out my mohawk into what looked like a mullet (a cute mullet, but a mullet nonetheless). I struggled with how I would feel around my family and how I might be perceived by my partner’s family if I were to take the leap and finally just shave it all off. In my family, and society as a whole, shaving one’s head is considered to be a consequence of a “mental breakdown.” In fact, that was the first thing my mother and my therapist asked me when they saw me without hair: “Um… Are you doing okay?”
Just so we’re clear: Yes, I’m okay. Even if I wasn’t, that’s no one’s business but mine.
Growing up, I was pressured to be feminine, though I had always described myself as a “tomboy.” I liked playing in dirt, catching bugs, and running rampant all over my neighborhood. All of this was okay, as long as I had long hair and wore dresses. As an adult with childhood trauma, I look back at my isolated, confused self and wish they had the words to describe themself as nonbinary. I wish others in my life back then allowed me that freedom to explore myself to begin with. Among all of the pain I was feeling, it might have helped to have been able to match the person I saw in the mirror to the person I felt inside.
When I finally discovered what a nonbinary gender identity was, everything fell into place. Unfortunately, I was already in my early twenties when this took place and I had, therefore, spent a lot of years not feeling like I understood myself. I grappled with how to express my newfound gender identity while fearing what others would think of me. My first very short haircut was frightening yet invigorating. From there, I slowly started shaving different parts of my head, sometimes only one side, then later, both. I had a short mohawk for a long time and that will probably be my go-to if I grow my hair out again.
Sometimes I feel self-conscious for having a shaved head and worry about how I look. It is hard to separate one’s own happiness from societal pressure to adhere to norms. This is a daily battle for me, not only as a queer, trans non-binary person, but now, as a person without hair. Confidence is hard when defying expectations, but everyday I remind myself that I am not living for anyone else; I am living my life for me.
For now, I am happy with the carefree feeling of not having hair. I feel more androgynous and that suits the way I express myself as a nonbinary person. I look in the mirror and see a brave human who stands up to those who have something to say about them, who favored their own desires instead of giving in to what was expected of them. I feel authentically and- at least on my head- hairlessly me.
