A few years ago, a popular hair product company sent a press release about its new line of hair-cutting scissors. Unfortunately, they also sent me a pair.


I don't know what it was, but from the moment I picked them up, I was under the illusion that I'd somehow earned a cosmetology degree. So not the case.

From small transgressions, like snipping away at individual split ends, I built up to larger offenses, like "angling" the hair around my face, and "evening out" unwanted layers. These types of things rarely end well, but since I was growing out my hair anyway, I convinced myself I could pinch-hit in the styling department until my hair reached below my shoulders.

But the other day I found myself somewhere I haven't been in years... a hairstylist's chair. I was only there for a Davines conditioning treatment, but as Pasquale Ferrante, co-owner of the Ion Studio in NYC's SoHo, surveyed my hair, he changed the subject. "You cut your own hair?" he asked.

"No!" I replied. "Well, yes, but ..." My excuses sounded feeble.

"Can I fix it?" He asked, ever so sweetly. Of course, I let him. And thank God. While I watched all of his many learned techniques, it made me realize how silly I was chopping away large sections in a single blunt snip. Never again! Most likely.

Am I the only person out there who cuts my own hair? If you've ever given yourself a haircut -- for better or for worse -- I want to hear about it! Leave a comment below. And stay tuned for our awesome video on the one kind of trim you can attempt at home -- your bangs -- coming soon!