Shaving your hair!

I shaved some of my hair off 6 months ago and now I want to share my 'expertise' on the subject for any of you who are thinking about shaving your own hair. This post will highlight the pros and cons of shaving your hair and then maintaining it so you have some idea of what's going to happen before you take on such a big hairstyle change. 

Disclaimer!
I would firstly like to state that I never went to the hairdressers, I shave my hair with my hair clippers at home because I'm both too poor and too awkward to go to a hairdressers. I wouldn't advise this (and I'm sure a hairdresser wouldn't either), but as long as you know what you're doing and you're ready to accept a horrible hair mis-hap, if one was to happen, I would say it is definitely possible to create this hairstyle on your own.

Thinking About It
I spent months wondering whether I should shave the side of my hair off. It started when I pinned a portion of my hair back tightly for a 40's inspired hairstyle; people commented saying that it looked nice and I should shave it off. After that, inception occurred, and I couldn't stop thinking about it! 
I pinned my hair in that way all the time and it took a year for me to finally take the leap of faith. 

Actually Doing It 
After pondering on this subject for a good long while, I finally did it. I got my mum to help me (I would definitely get help if you're doing this at home), and I carefully selected the hair that I wanted to shave off. I firstly moved my parting over more so that when it came to growing my patch out, I could flip some hair over from the other side to cover it up. When I was comfortable with my new parting, I started taking 1cm lines of hair from my parting line to where my hair meets my ear to see how far back I wanted the patch to be. 
For reference, if I press my ear to my head, my patch stops at the tip of my ear. 

I tied the rest of my hair back to the other side of my head so it was out of the way, and then used a pair of scissors to cut the selected patch of hair about half an inch long. For someone who has always had long hair, lobbing off that much hair was certainly an experience and it actually shocked me because, obviously, at this point, there was no going back. 
It was time to get the clippers out. With my long hair still tied up, out of the way, I shaved off the patch of short hair. It is completely up to you, how long you want this hair to be, unless your clippers have a set length (I shaved mine using a size 3 to begin with and then went down to 2, which is just under 1cm long).

My mum checked the line of hair to make sure it was straight and then I used scissors to clean up the hair around my ear. If you're not used to having super short hair then I would prepare yourself for a shock because, for me, it was so weird seeing my hair that short. However, I would definitely say that I didn't regret it at all! 

Maintaining It 
The worst part of having shaven hair is having to maintain it. I will usually shave it every fortnight and cut the hair that grows over my ear every week, or whenever I notice it growing too much. I am a notoriously lazy person and instead of spending one minute shaving my patch I will just let it grow out. Don't do this!!! When your hair gets to a certain length, it will start sticking out weirdly and this (for me at least) is not a desirable look. So keep on top of it! I like my patch at around 1cm long, it's long enough that the colour in that area is the same as the rest of my hair but not too long that it does said sticky out thing. 

One thing I would say is, please be super careful when shaving. I almost always catch bits of long hair and then end up with stray hairs that are about 2 inches longer than my patch hair and 5 inches shorter than my long hair. This is why I suggested going to the hairdressers to get it shaved because I doubt they would do this too. Of course, hairdressers can get expensive and not everyone has that kind of money. 

Relating to the previous two comments, please, please, please don't use scissors to cut your patch once is starts growing too long!!!!  
Here's a little anecdote for you: a couple of months ago, I realised I had let my hair grow out way too much when I was getting ready for college (remember what I said about keeping on top of your patch a couple paragraphs ago, yeah, that comes from personal experience). As if it wasn't bad enough, I didn't have any clippers at my house so I decided using scissors to cut down the hair would be a great idea. It really, really wasn't. I ended up creating an uneven, chopped up mess on my patch and I can't describe just how bad it looked. It was bad. It was so bad.
I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to be affected by other's opinions but I totally am. So, I couldn't go to college like this. At this point, my clippers were still at my dads, who lived 20 minutes away from my house and 25 minutes away from my college. It was my only option if I wanted to go to college that day. So I called in to say I would be late, took the 45 minute round trip, and turned up to college an hour late but at least it was with neatly cut hair. 

Living With It
From personal experience, patches suits short hair, long hair, curly hair, straight hair, loose hair, ponytails and buns, from personal observation, patches suit anyone, of any age, race, hair colour etc. Seriously, this has to be one of the most versatile hairstyles I have seen and I adore it. So, if you're worried it might not suit you, the chances are, it will. As I said before, pinning your hair back is a great way to test what it would look like on you! 

Growing It Out 
I haven't grown my hair out yet so I can't really tell you how that goes but I just wanted to take a moment to point out that the chances are, you're going to want to grow it out at some point in the future. This means waiting months and years, for your hair to go through every step of growth (yes, even the horrible sticky out step I have warned you about). Please consider this before you go ahead with the scissors. I am way too scared to go through this process at the moment, luckily, I love my hair and I'm happy to keep it this way so I know I don't have to face growing it for a while. 

So, that's all I can really say about shaving your hair, I encourage anyone to go ahead and do what they like with their hair. I just think, at the end of the day, it's only hair, it grows back, it doesn't define you so why not, y'know? If you have any questions, feel free to comment and good luck on your hair-ventures!