Haircut advice?

Therese1

I've been growing out my hair for the last year and am having problems getting it to look the way I want. I have been using a regular stylist who is very good and open to suggestions, and I would like to keep her if possible rather than go to a curly stylist. She does a regular wet cut on me. I don't have much bounce-back with my curls in general, as I am only a 2a/2b.

I had a haircut last week, and I told my stylist that I felt that the bottom was too heavy. I wanted it to look more tapered rather than straight across.

To address this, my hair stylist decided to cut out a few chunks of hair on the underlayer and also on the canopy to try to reduce the bulk.

I feel like my hair can get some nice volume on the sides, where the shortest layer ends, but then it seems to hang straight down, giving me a bit of a blocky look. I sometimes purposefully try to pull out the curl on the shortest layer because that hair just looks like a "bump," since that layer bounces up more than the layers below. Smoothing the topmost layer down is really pointless because I *want* volume. The longest layer in particular seems to really hang there and not bounce up like the previous layers, making the ends of my hair look stringy.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I should tell my hair stylist so that I can get a better shape to my hair? Or should I just suck it up and go to a curly stylist?

I hope the photos are OK. I do not have a means of taking photos other than my computer video camera right now. I did lighten them a bit to try to show more detail in my hair.

Thank you, all!

rbb

i actually like the cut. maybe your products are too heavy? maybe you need lighter leave ins?
here is a thread from the salon/stylist forum that has great info (it was started by a stylist who does deva cuts):
http://www.naturallycurly.com/curltalk/salon-stylist-chatter/76806-what-should-i-tell-my-stylist.html

Therese1

For some unknown reason, my hair photographs better than it appears in real life, rbb! Oh well. Thanks for the link.

naturecat

I like your hair too. I struggle with short pieces that don't curl properly, cause they stick to my scalp when wet and I can't get to them with product and the diffuser too well. So you may want your layers closer together? If the longest layers hang down too much then maybe you want to consider going a bit shorter overall to get your hair to bounce up more. It can be tricky with a wet cut because you don't get to see how the short layer behaves, but sometimes it's worth putting up with to keep a stylist you like.

Therese1

In case anyone is interested, I went back to my stylist today and found out what the problem was. She needed to take out more slices of hair in the underlayer. She used a razor and took out a few chunks. Now my hair lies much nicer on the bottom (it doesn't just hang there), and my curls on the bottom have more spring. I'm much happier with my hair now.

Hair cutting is such a mystery to me...