I am boring, make my hair interesting.

January 19, 2012 12:34 PM

Help me get a hipster/punk/androgynous/whateveryouwanttocallit hair cut in New York, please!

Usually I get a super-short pixie, let it grow out, cut it all off again, etc. Currently my hair just about reaches my earlobes, and, while I love pixies, I'm bored. I think I want to shave the sides of my head and leave the top long or something equally dramatic, but I'm not sure. My hair is thick and wavy, and I can't quite tell if it will look awesome or awful.

Please recommend a salon (and specific stylist!) who can talk me through options and help me decide if I should go all-in and or stick with my pixie. I find stylists really intimidating, and have this idea they will be really condescending about my desire for hipster hair, so help me find someone who won't do that?

Ideally you can know someone somewhere between Chelsea and Boerum Hill that charges $60 (or less!) plus tip. I am also fine with friends-of-friends who go to your house.

posted by (Over) Thinking to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (5 answers total)

I love Shaun at Seagull. He seems to have a knack for just the thing you mention. He is outside your price range, though, so maybe check out the other stylists there? From what I've seen, they share a common aesthetic.
posted by minervous at 1:13 PM on January 19, 2012

Haven't caught up with her in a while, but my cute friend Sera Sloane used to work with Bumble & Bumble. I think she just opened a miniature and fairly private little salon on the LES. She does all kinds of fashion-y cuts. Here she is dip-dying a girl's hair in pink Kool-Aid.

Shoot her an email—at the very least she could have a lead for you. No idea how much she charges, though.

Her email seems to be in her Blogger profile.
posted by functionequalsform at 1:15 PM on January 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

I do have a friend of a friend - I got my hair cut by him once in a friend's kitchen in Brooklyn Heights in August 2010. I was growing out a short hairstyle, he cut it into a super-cute bob that I got a lot of compliments on. I loved it, but was living on the West Coast at the time and now DC, so I haven't gone back to him.

At the time, he had left a salon job and was trying to make it in editorial hairstyling (fashion magazines), but was still cutting hair on the side. He charged me $40.

Memail me if you want his number - I don't want to put his number all over the internet without his permission.
posted by foodmapper at 1:36 PM on January 19, 2012

They are always using hair models for the exact haircut you seem to be going for at the Arrojo apprenticeship program. A bunch of hipster stylists who already have their licenses go through a one-year program in order to work there and basically break into the NY upmarket salon scene.

So yeah, I would call them and see if anyone needs a model, they always seem to and the results are really good. It's often not free-- like 15 bucks or something, btw.
posted by devymetal at 3:48 PM on January 19, 2012

Go go go see the amazing Saori at Salon Seven on 7th Street in the E. Village. For years I had short short hair and went back to her religiously, even when I was living in other states and countries, to get the do she gave me, which was simultaneously punk and sleek and cute and sophisticated and basically whatever I wanted whenever and worked perfectly with my kinda weird hair texture and funky face.
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 4:02 PM on January 19, 2012