I'm wondering whether I should get my hair cut short all over.

I've never had much patience with haircare; I'm one of the few people I know who has steadfastly refused to even try growing their hair really long, because no matter how good various people thought it would look, it would simply annoy me too much. Even the length I normally have it at causes enough problems – going into dandelion mode when I get caught in a high wind and it hasn't been cut for a few weeks, for example, or sticking up annoyingly when I get up in the morning. Also, I'm getting increasingly irritated with barbers who never quite seem to be able to do a proper job; the guy in charge at Il Barbiere is very good, but I seem to have about a one in three chance of getting him and normally get it cut by his junior who isn't nearly as good and often misses bits.

So I had a look in the mirror recently and judged the length of the longest bits at the front, and I calculated in my head that if I get it all cut short now then it probably wouldn't take more than a month or two to grow back out if I decided it was ghastly. But if it doesn't look too bad, then (a) I'd have a hairstyle which even an incompetent barber couldn't foul up too badly, and (b) I might even be able to maintain it myself at lower cost and greater convenience. Not to mention (c) strong winds and early mornings wouldn't bother it.

On the other hand, I'm nervous at the idea of looking ghastly for two months; I've never thought of myself as vain (you can't be when you look like a teddy bear), but precisely because of that I'd hesitate before making myself look even worse :-) And since my cheeks are quite chubby, I'm worried that if I get rid of the bulk of hair at the top of my head it will end up looking completely bottom-heavy. And I'm not 100% convinced that my rough calculation of my hair-growing rate is right, so it might take longer to grow back out if I don't like it.

On the third hand, I'll never know if I don't try, and the start of summer is the perfect time to try it because at the very least it'll keep my head nice and cool all summer, so I think on balance I'm leaning towards giving it a go.

If anyone has strong opinions or advice to give me one way or the other (especially if they think my rate calculation is way off), now would be a good time to shout :-) What I'd really like is some means of taking a photo and electronically doctoring it to give an idea of what it might look like before I try it, so if anyone knows of a way of doing that then that would be even better…

So, the shall-I-get-my-hair-cut-off post got lots of positive or ‘can't hurt to try’ sorts of responses, and only one remotely negative one, so I went out at lunchtime and did the deed.

I'm slightly surprised at how much the result still looks like me – I was vaguely expecting not to recognise myself in the mirror at all, probably because I recognise other people by their hairstyles quite a lot. But evidently I know my own face better than that :-)

I think I need to get used to it before I can decide whether I like it like this or not, though. Right now it just seems a bit unreal.

By popular demand, here are three photos of my new haircut. (I feel horribly vain just posting this, but people did ask…)

http://www.tartarus.org/~simon/shorthair/fullface.jpeg
http://www.tartarus.org/~simon/shorthair/threequarter-1.jpeg
http://www.tartarus.org/~simon/shorthair/threequarter-2.jpeg

That was quite fun; it's probably the first time I've ever made a serious effort to take a picture and have it come out just right. I'm sure I could have done better given a few well placed lights, the foresight to shave immediately before the photo shoot, and most importantly someone else to hold the camera instead of having to use the self-timer thingy, but those pictures look believably like me so I reckon they'll do.