My first few days with ultra-long hair were thrilling. I instantly found myself gravitating toward a completely different way of dressing, ditching my prim-and-proper Betty Draper dresses for ’70s flares and unbuttoned vests. I was also stopping friends in their tracks and had become a (willing) human petting zoo while answering questions about how long it took, how I felt, and whether or not I was going to keep it. There was also and interaction with a befuddled (male) coworker stractched his head while adding “Wait, this isn’t what your hair always looks like? I’m so confused.”
Now living in my long-haired world, I became jealous of anybody who just simply had this length, grown all on their own. “Ever since I was around eight years old and got mistaken for a boy while I was on holiday, I’ve gravitated towards long hair,” says the previously mentioned (and moodboard dream girl) Tish Weinstock about her self-described “long, dark, and straggly” hair. “I totally feel like it’s part of my identity now. I can hide behind it but also draw strength from it at the same time.”
If Weinstock is bringing Morticia Addams to the long-hair conversation, then Hill House Home foundeder Nell Diamond is her foil. “There was a moment in high school when I thought my hair was was boho,” Diamond jokes when I ask about her elbow-length aburn hair. “I quickly came to the realization that nothing else about me says boho. I’d describe it as pre-Raphaelite.” It’s horse girl perfection in the most positive sense of the description—thick and shiny, sometimes braided or topped off with a bowed—and almost feels like a model on its own for her brand.
Diamond has had variations of bobs in the past (“I could never do that again,” she says) and it’s off the table for Weinstock, too. “I’d feel totally naked without my hair, as well as I just know I wouldn’t suit a bob. It’s actually quite ironic considering how many times i’ve gone out in a 30s lace dress and a pair of thongs.”
Weinstock must have been reading my mind—beacause days later I took my new ‘do to the Cote d’Azur with a plan. While staying at the Eden Roc Hotel du Cap, I did the most French thing I can think of—used my mermaid hair as a prop for topless beach photos. On the same trip, I ran into Taylor-Joy in the flesh at a Dior party—and stopped to chat with her amazing stylist Gregory Russell. “Kertain treatment,” was the advice he had for me as another way to make the blend between my natural and new hair even more seamless.
Seven weeks later, after a much less thrilling four hours in the back room of the Bellami shop, the hair was out and I was back to my “normal” self. My head feels lighter—and my hair thinner (they warn me this is a normal feeling. I’m surprised to realize my bob has also grown quite a bit while I’ve concealed it under my dream length. Just a little bit closer to returning to boho hair.