Transitioning from very long hair to very short was a bit of a process. It definitely took courage, and it required me to stop really caring what people thought about my looks. That might have been a small part of the reason I did it. I’ve always been told I have four times the amount of hair I should, so, naturally, caring for it was a task. It was like maintaining a pet. Washing, drying, and styling it took a large amount of time and effort, and although I was set on growing it out as long as possible, the workload got to the point where I just wasn’t styling it anymore. Showers required a good twenty minutes, and straightening and curling took around three hours.

I started looking at alternative haircuts, although I’d had bad experiences with shoulder-length and short bobs. I promised myself years ago I’d never do that again, so I resolved to go even shorter. At first, I couldn’t even fathom going nearly that short, but the possibility was always lurking in the back of my mind. I would scroll through Pinterest searching for something I thought would suit me, despite the seeming lack of a possibility of ever doing something so extreme.

After having an experience over the summer that was really sort of a turning point in my life, it was beginning to appeal more and more. The weighty mass of hair felt like a remnant of a hard time, and the urge to cut it off became increasingly prevalent.

There were worries I had, of course. What if it turned out badly, if I couldn’t pull it off? There would be no going back. How would my friends react to the change? What if my family didn’t approve? My grandparents were rather traditional and nagged my brother about his longish hair. What would they think about mine? I would be undoing all of the work I’d done over the years for the length I’d achieved.

These are things that most girls think before getting a pixie, as I figured out. I listened to other girls who had short hair, and they disclosed that most of these thoughts were just paranoid or ill-founded. The conclusion I came to was that as long as I liked it, I shouldn’t worry about what everyone else thinks. It would be like a new start.

When I finally had it done, it wasn’t all that shocking. The sensation was different; whereas usually I’d reach back and hardly be able to stroke the length of my hair, now all that remained was less than an inch below my hairline.

Figuring out how to style it best and know my options was a process. The different types of cuts give you different sets of options, and you can experiment to find out what does and does not work for you. Since I have a lot of natural volume, I have to use a lot of product and styling to keep it tame. If you have thin hair, you might need to use different products and apply them in a different way. Your stylist should be able to advise you on what cuts and styles will work best. I hear a lot that you can’t pull off a pixie if you don’t have a select face shape; that’s nonsense. Different styles can accompany your face shape better than others, but I think it’s rare that someone couldn’t pull off a pixie of any sort. Often a pixie will make a teenager or young woman look older and will have the opposite effect for older women.

Cutting my hair into a pixie also made me feel a bit more confident. Knowing that I was able to completely change my look and still be self-assured helped increase that self-confidence. Girls I used to know with pixies tend to give off an incredible air of confidence, and now I can see why. Doing something like this, at least for me, helped me to lose my worries over what people thought about me. Despite this, I’ve noticed that the look gets much more attention than my old style. Some people close to me hadn’t approved of the look, which I’d taken into consideration. Within the first four weeks of school, I’d had around twenty people making positive comments on it. People were much more supportive than I’d imagined.

My advice to anyone thinking about getting a pixie is not to take your worries too seriously; if it is a big transition for you like it was for me, you will get attention for it from people who know you. If it’s the big reveal that gives you anxiety, just remember: it only happens for a short period of time. Once those around you are used to it, it won’t be as big of a deal, and shortly you will get used to it too. It gives you a lot of freedom to play around with styles, and it grows out faster than you think if you don’t like it. I personally will keep cutting it for a while at least. After all, you get one life. Why not try out as many styles as you can? It’s a learning experience. You find out that you can do more with your style than you may have thought possible. Just a week before I got the pixie, I was sure I would never do something so “extreme.”

I’m glad I got mine, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is looking for a unique cut that will leave an impression.