LastSamurai
Established Member
- Reaction score
- 233
Hi all,
it's been a while since I posted.
For a few of you who remember, I had been threatening to shave / buzz my head down for a while. I finally pulled the plug on the date mentioned in the title.
So it's been 6-7 weeks. It feels like a lot longer to be honest, kind of crazy how time works.
I could probably ramble for hours on this but I'll try and not to be too verbose.
Suffice to say, I'm glad I did it. The early days were hard yet good at the same time. Overall I liked the look, and reception among family and friends was very positive. Yet at the same time, the first week or two was tough, it took me a while to accept the look and get used to it. Looking back it's been quite a confidence enhancing ride, going from my family members seeing it, one by one, to going back to work after Christmas and getting ready for a reception. Again, the work reaction was surprisingly positive. If anything I enjoyed the conversation starter element of it.
I was suprised by one thing. My hairloss actually became more visable to others after I buzzed it! Even though I could see my lack of density before I buzzed, I don't think others truly noticed. It was only when I buzzzed that you could really see the recession coming into the middle of my skull, with the half circle forming, and the island on the top of my head kind of neatly seperated from my remaining crown hair.
That was probably the hardest part for me, it looked strange seeing the dense hairs at the top circle then a clear line and then the crown hair. Ultimately, although I was happy with the look, I realised that my previous grown out on top with short sides look wasn't as bad as I had made it out to be. Sometimes you just need to know what the alternative really looks like to make an informed decision.
I had to buzz down to know that I am not quite ready to stay buzzed. I still feel I have a few more years left of keeping some length on my top before going completely buzzed. For me, I realised that some hair is often better then having nothing there. Ironically I suspect once my island at the front starts to disappear it won't look so strange to have a little black circle there. Until that island goes I think I just need to keep it short ish for the time being.
My advice is to go for it if you are thinking of buzzing, it may not be the ideal solution for you going forward but at least you will have a reference point going forward for how it looks. That way you can decide between the buzzed down look or what you had before to see which suits you better. In addition, when it does inevitably come to the point where you need to buzz down again, you know what to expect, and it won't be such a shock. So you are kind of preparing yourself and the second time around you will be way more confident.
Just be prepared for it to take a long time to grow back. I would say however that my hair has grown back well now (length on top about no.3) so in another 6 weeks or so it will be no.6+ and back to styling it again. So it's not crazy long, it kind of accelerates if anything. But the first 4 weeks or so feel quite stark. From now on it just looks like I have my hair short but you wouldn't know I buzzed it so low only 6 weeks ago.
All in all a great experiment. Will be interesting to see how I deal with growing it out again - that has its own frustrations, but hopefully this time I can be more balanced in my viewpoint given I know how the alternative looks. Ultimately it looked good but like I say, I didn't like the fact the hairloss seemed more noticible. I also had the feeling straight away that it was going to take a long time to grow back, so I wasn't confident in keeping it down. I think once you start shaving it or buzzing it continually, you kind of need to be ready to give up your hair for the long term, and it's only really easy to do that when you have no hair left on the front / top of your head anyway.
But just my two cents on the experience. Maybe I'n lucky but the reception was extremely positive. People were kind, inquisitive, and ultimately gave way less of a sh*t then I thought they would.
it's been a while since I posted.
For a few of you who remember, I had been threatening to shave / buzz my head down for a while. I finally pulled the plug on the date mentioned in the title.
So it's been 6-7 weeks. It feels like a lot longer to be honest, kind of crazy how time works.
I could probably ramble for hours on this but I'll try and not to be too verbose.
Suffice to say, I'm glad I did it. The early days were hard yet good at the same time. Overall I liked the look, and reception among family and friends was very positive. Yet at the same time, the first week or two was tough, it took me a while to accept the look and get used to it. Looking back it's been quite a confidence enhancing ride, going from my family members seeing it, one by one, to going back to work after Christmas and getting ready for a reception. Again, the work reaction was surprisingly positive. If anything I enjoyed the conversation starter element of it.
I was suprised by one thing. My hairloss actually became more visable to others after I buzzed it! Even though I could see my lack of density before I buzzed, I don't think others truly noticed. It was only when I buzzzed that you could really see the recession coming into the middle of my skull, with the half circle forming, and the island on the top of my head kind of neatly seperated from my remaining crown hair.
That was probably the hardest part for me, it looked strange seeing the dense hairs at the top circle then a clear line and then the crown hair. Ultimately, although I was happy with the look, I realised that my previous grown out on top with short sides look wasn't as bad as I had made it out to be. Sometimes you just need to know what the alternative really looks like to make an informed decision.
I had to buzz down to know that I am not quite ready to stay buzzed. I still feel I have a few more years left of keeping some length on my top before going completely buzzed. For me, I realised that some hair is often better then having nothing there. Ironically I suspect once my island at the front starts to disappear it won't look so strange to have a little black circle there. Until that island goes I think I just need to keep it short ish for the time being.
My advice is to go for it if you are thinking of buzzing, it may not be the ideal solution for you going forward but at least you will have a reference point going forward for how it looks. That way you can decide between the buzzed down look or what you had before to see which suits you better. In addition, when it does inevitably come to the point where you need to buzz down again, you know what to expect, and it won't be such a shock. So you are kind of preparing yourself and the second time around you will be way more confident.
Just be prepared for it to take a long time to grow back. I would say however that my hair has grown back well now (length on top about no.3) so in another 6 weeks or so it will be no.6+ and back to styling it again. So it's not crazy long, it kind of accelerates if anything. But the first 4 weeks or so feel quite stark. From now on it just looks like I have my hair short but you wouldn't know I buzzed it so low only 6 weeks ago.
All in all a great experiment. Will be interesting to see how I deal with growing it out again - that has its own frustrations, but hopefully this time I can be more balanced in my viewpoint given I know how the alternative looks. Ultimately it looked good but like I say, I didn't like the fact the hairloss seemed more noticible. I also had the feeling straight away that it was going to take a long time to grow back, so I wasn't confident in keeping it down. I think once you start shaving it or buzzing it continually, you kind of need to be ready to give up your hair for the long term, and it's only really easy to do that when you have no hair left on the front / top of your head anyway.
But just my two cents on the experience. Maybe I'n lucky but the reception was extremely positive. People were kind, inquisitive, and ultimately gave way less of a sh*t then I thought they would.