“I had been slowly adjusting the way my bangs fell, growing out the pieces to the far left and right over the course of about six months. I went back to the same stylist that I had been seeing the whole time, just for a trim. We had discussed on numerous occasions (including at the start of that appointment) how I didn’t want these particular pieces cut, that I was growing them out, etc. Well, the stylist started talking to some of the other people in the shop, and before I knew it, those pieces of hair had not only been cut, for some unknown reason they’d been cut to about three-quarters of an inch shorter than the bangs. I was so angry ... and then wore bobby pins and clips in the most bizarre places for months.”
D.K., Boston
Botched bangs are a tough one, admits George Amaral, manager and stylist at Salon Mario Russo (9 Newbury Street, Boston, 617.424.6676). “It’s not an easy growth,” he says. Luckily, he has an alternative to arranging funky clips and pins every which way. “You want to basically add [the shorn bangs] to the angle of the sides,” Amaral explains. “The area from the temple to the jaw around the ear area, that should be angled. I start cutting up and angling that, adding [the shorter pieces] to that part of the hair as opposed to the bang section. It makes the growth a lot easier. It’s stylish, [and] it makes it a lot easier to grow out.”
Once the pieces reach a certain length, they can at least be tucked behind the ears. But in situations like these, you’re in it for the long haul. It takes six months to a year, Amaral estimates, until a new look is really possible.