This isn’t the greatest photo of my new hair because it’s sort of tucked to the side so it looks shorter in the back than it actually is, but I’m very happy with how it came out. Of course it looked more perfectly perfect immediately after the appointment (hairdressers have that special blow-drying skill that I have yet to master in my own home), but this is day-after reality!

Pattie at Soon Beauty Lab was great, and the whole experience was definitely worth repeating. It was also one of the cheapest haircuts I’ve had in my life ($50!), so I really don’t have any excuse for not going back to get regular trims. I have to stop with the late-night self-trims. She could tell that I’d been butchering it!

A side bonus of Soon is that they are dog-friendly. There was a very, very sweet little Havanese (I think she may have been a mix, because she was tiny) named Boo snoozing on the chair next to me the whole time. People who love dogs and think they should be a part of everyday working life automatically get extra good-person points from me!

Many thanks to all who replied to this post from me few weeks ago with great suggestions for hairdressers in NYC. After much mulling, I finally decided to make an appointment for 6:00 PM today with Pattie at Soon Beauty Lab. Five hours to go!

I’m bringing along a montage of photos of Sara Quin from Tegan and Sara. I’ve never even listened to them (actually I’m listening to something right now online, and…well, I think my appreciation begins and ends with the haircut, oh well), but I saw this haircut while searching for photos of blunt bangs, and WOW! It’s a great cut. I always feel kind of goofy bringing along photos to the hairdresser, but surely that’s the easiest way to communicate what I want, right?

I’m also going to have a discussion with her regarding hair color, and what can be done about mine. I’ve been dying my hair for 19 years (!)—black for about 15 of them—and I’m sort of curious about how I might look with a totally different color. Say, pastel blonde. Who knows? If I do it and I hate it, I can always make it black again.

I’m nervous! I always get this way before a haircut. Tick, tock…

I need a professional haircut, because I look like this:

I used to go to Jane at Grace Heaven, and then I went to Simone at Laicale for a few years. I love them both (and would recommend either of them in a heartbeat), but I feel like I need to try someone new. That said, the fear of trying someone new has lead me to spend the past two years cutting my own hair—with thinning shears. Chop, chop, chop, chop. No rhyme or reason, just hacking away. I like looking disheveled, but there’s a limit (see above photo).

NYC people: Who do you recommend? I like stylists who don’t mind taking sculptural liberties when cutting. I’m pretty fearless when it comes to hair (though I do require having bangs; I can’t exist without them, but they can be short-short-short or long), but the stylist must understand my hair icons (Lydia Lunch, Debbie Harry, Exene Cervenka) and not try to give me a soccer-mom cut.

One of the big things I used to write about on the old blog was my obsession with cosmetic and skin care products. I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to go down that road with this site (because it’s about my house, right?!), but I just can’t help myself. Anyone who knows me will not hesitate for a single second to tell you that the desire to talk about this stuff is just an essential part of who I am. Why deny that any longer? I give in!

And so, I present to you my current product obsession, DERMAdoctor Wrinkle Revenge Rescue & Protect Eye Balm.

I’m on my third jar of this stuff (and I’m one of those people who hardly ever uses anything up, and instead moves on to something else in hopes that it will be the product that changes my life), so I feel pretty confident in recommending it. I actually stopped using it for about 6 months because I didn’t feel like shelling out $70 for a new jar, but over the course of that time, the skin around my eyes got really craggy and crepe-y. I’m 32 (no, not OLD, but not YOUNG, either—I’m fighting wrinkles and pimples at the same time, which is just completely awesome, let me tell you) I finally broke down last weekend and shelled out the cash, and after using it morning and night since then, there’s already a noticeable improvement. I swear it’s not my imagination, either! Totally worth the cash, and to be honest, it’s a pretty big jar as far as eye creams go.

I have yet to find a fabulous undereye concealer, sadly. I’m presently using Clinique All About Eyes Concealer, and while it’s not awful, I definitely don’t love it. I think I’m running out of brands to try, though! Maybe I just need to wear more eyeliner, and the dark circles will just blend in and look intentional.