StyleSpy with Katrina Szish

I suffer from hair sabotage syndrome.

My natural hair is straight, medium blonde, fine texture, but decently thick.  Yet I always feel the need to mess with Mother Nature.

I have been platinum several times (most recently this summer)...

Channeling Gwen with Hannah Byun, designer of Hansel From Basel hosiery

Golden blonde...

Summer of 2006, weeks before the most recent short circuit

Strawberry blonde, red, brown and jet black (twice...don't ask)...

By Norman Jean Roy, 2001

I've had an asymmetrical bob (it was the 80s)...

1986 -- the other side was shaved!

A bob with bangs...

Spring 2004, on my honeymoon (guess where we went?)

A bob with no bangs...

Spring 2007

...and a buzz cut (in a last-ditch attempt to get rid of the black; all photographic evidence has been confiscated). 

Not to mention all the awkward growing-out stages in between.

I tend to spend years growing it out to its most perfect natural state, only to ruin it all with a single snip of the scissors.  I usually chop it after seeing a picture of Linda Evangelista, Mia Farrow, Twiggy or the latest model to shock the fashion industry by lopping her luscious locks (Anja Rubik, below, was my most recent muse).

Image from Polki.pl

Summer 2007

I'm an all or nothing person, so in-between lengths or safe styles are never satisfying. 

Dramatic hair changes make me feel independent, strong, untethered, rebellious...for about an hour.  And then I want my real hair back, and the cycle starts again.

I am currently mid-cycle.  I have waaaaayyyyy too many layers, which makes me feel like I'm in purgatory. 

Long layers are one thing, but for some reason scissor-happy hands always want to hack away, leaving me with cropped, choppy layers.

But as of today, I'm taking back my hair.  I will no longer nod "yes" when I really mean "absolutely not" as the shears come towards my head.  I will learn, finally, that photo shoot hair rarely translates into real life hair.  I will resist the urge to shock friends, family and co-workers with a seasonal hair hacking (I am already hearing cheers up and down the East Coast).

Today I am entrusting my hacked-up head to the capable hands of Adel at Louis Licari (Louis himself brought my sad, weakened, bleached out summer locks back to life).  Adel is more than a skilled stylist:  He's also a hair extension guru. 

I have never had extensions, but if there ever was a time to sit still for hours on end without fidgeting, it's now.

Not only will Adel limit my stay in layer purgatory, but he will shape my new head of hair into the Next Big Hair Trend for a Fox5 Fashion Week trend segment...now that may sound as if I'm going back to my old ways, but I have a pretty good hunch that the Next Big Hair Trend is going to be all about longer, sleeker, more natural locks.

If I can't be naturally natural, faux-natural suits me just fine -- especially if the words "choppy layers" are no longer part of my hair vocabulary.

Sorry, Twiggy!

Check back during Fashion Week for the big reveal, and set your DVRs to record Fox5's "Good Day New York" next week, where you'll get to watch the long and the short of it.