The lowest moment I have experienced in a hairdresser’s chair came shortly after a break-up. I had gone with the?idea that I wanted a less feminine look than my straight, shoulder-length hair. I?thought a radical change would reflect my?new freedom: I?was an independent woman, striking out?on my own. And so I?requested a choppy, cropped thing that had no business?being on my head at all. It?would have suited someone gamine, with a small, mischievous nose. Looking back, I?find my decision hard?to understand since I was also embarking on a?spree of casual heterosexual dating at that time. Even during the haircut, as I faced myself grimly in the mirror, I could?see what should have been obvious?from the very start: the new crop?made me look like a pigeon.?

The hairdresser, a harried woman sporting raven black, waist-length hair, was about halfway through the cut at that stage. One side of my head was the full pigeon. The?other side had a longer, suggestive layer yet to be trimmed. It didn’t look much better but I clung?to?it:?the ghost of my old hairstyle. I remember saying something like, “I’m?not sure about this cut, actually.” Then I sort of?slid?out of the chair and hurried out?amid her protests. I had prepaid for the experience on a website that let me shop for the best deals all over London. That was how I found hairdressers back then (this is a very bad way?to find a hairdresser). I?spent the week after in denial, going about the place with approximately two-thirds of a haircut, trying to look at myself in the mirror as little as possible. It was like the experience of being broke and trying to avoid the sight of?your bank balance. I knew the truth but, if I didn’t have?to see it, I could pretend to myself that things?were different.?

It was not just that the haircut made my face look bad. The thing that made that experience so awful is?that a haircut makes a statement about one’s personality and life. Mine was supposed to make me seem carefree. I?had?wanted to be the kind of?woman who is louche and quietly elegant. A woman who didn’t need make-up, who barely needed hair. But I was not that kind of woman and I?never would be. Instead I looked dowdy. And also, I feared, kind of uptight; like someone who had short hair for reasons of practicality or cleanliness or similar. I felt paranoid that people could tell?what I’d wanted, and could judge the difference between that and, well, me.?

I felt paranoid that people could tell what I’d wanted, and could judge the difference between that and, well, me

That experience taught me that you can never expect a new haircut to give you a different face or personality. I think, deep down, I somehow imagined it could. I remember, once, sitting in a hairdresser’s chair in Belfast and showing them a picture of Nico to demonstrate that I wanted layers to frame my face, as well as a fringe. The hairdresser said, “I can make your hair like?that but your face will never look like that.” I could actually see my own reaction to?this?in the mirror; my face deflated as?if?someone had slashed one of those blow-up?mascots they use to advertise car?dealerships with a pair of scissors.

You have to work with what you’ve got. And that whole pigeon debacle made me think more seriously about what that actually was. What did I want a haircut to do for me? I wanted it to be flattering (we all do), to suit my lifestyle and to express what I?liked about my personality. Someone in another phase of life might want to convey authority or professionalism. I remember when we finished university, many of my female friends had their long hair chopped into sleek bobs as they started graduate jobs. A little while later, more comfortable in their roles, most have grown them out. I wanted to appear interesting, creative. And the cut had to do this without being goofy or zany. Nothing that might evoke bowls or Tudors.

I grew the cropped mess out and went dark blonde and straight and shoulder-length again for a while. But it didn’t feel quite right. It was boring. So there were more ill-fated experiments with fringes and?layers, which turned out to demand more maintenance than I ever really had the energy for. Sometimes I would go to get?my fringe trimmed and sit watching in the mirror as it shrank until I became Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka.?

The fringe went. My hair felt boring again. The obvious solution was to go a lighter blonde, but I had been blonde as a teenager and I associated it with Smirnoff Ice and the clothes I favoured back then: heels with shorts and blazers, and the like.?

Lighter blonde, I remembered too, was even more maintenance than the fringe. Once when dyeing it myself I accidentally made it the same kind of white orange as Coronation Street’s Les Battersby. I fled to a trainee colourist in Belfast and he nodded gravely. “Let me try a wee solution,” he said. He spent hours inserting tiny grey-blonde highlights to “take the bite out of it”. I remember his forensic precision, his stoicism, his generosity. Mostly I remember it as a day I felt very grateful to be in the chair. At the end, to his credit, it looked wonderful. It was a striking shade of ash?blonde that brought out my eyes. The fee was ￡5 and I tipped him ￡30. I often regret that I didn’t give more.?

It was a long time before I felt a sense of?gratitude in the chair again. Not until I?found my current hairdresser, through a recommendation by a glamorous and aspirational woman I know named Kish. This is the correct way to find a hairdresser, and now it seems so obvious: if you want a good stylist, ask a stylish person with excellent hair. I came to the chair after one of the lockdowns. I had been trimming my hair myself and sometimes I?would snip away jaunty chunks. I actually don’t know what I thought I was doing. Perhaps it felt, during that bleak time, like entertainment. A creative outlet.

The hairdresser picked up a stray lump and I apologised. “You did the best you could,” he said. And there it was, a feeling I?did not know I had craved from the chair: understanding. Kindness. We discussed my?face shape and what I wanted: jaunty chunks gone, not too short. We settled into long, layered and centre-parted. After a few sessions I trusted him enough to confide that I worried my hair was a bit boring. Together we settled on the solution. Not light blonde but a soft orange. It was a shade unusual enough to be my signature colour, which made sense with my freckles and blue-green eyes. The roots are much less perceptible too. The maintenance actually suits my real life.?

I had not realised its power until recently. I was talking to my friend, who is a?poet. She described us both as having “dramatic hair”. I have been turning the words over in my mind ever since. I never got to be a woman who suited a louche crop. But I got something better: a hairstyle that is really, truly me.?

Rachel Connolly is the author of Lazy City, published by Canongate at ￡9.99