Describe your worst hair disaster.
The first time I put highlights in my own hair, I didn’t know that you’re supposed to buy actual quality hair bleach—so I got a lightener in a box from the drugstore, and instead of highlights, it turned all of my hair orange.
Eleanor Fong, 18, UCSC biology major
One time my parents cut all my hair off and I hated it. They just forced it on me and jumped me with it one day when they picked me up from school. I thought we were going home, but they took me straight to a barbershop—the kind with pictures on the wall where you point to the haircut you want. Now, a bad hair day for me is just when I sleep on it funny.
Joey Watanabe, 22, barista
I went to a new hair salon because I couldn’t afford my favorite one. I was happy with my hair, but I just needed my ends trimmed. After the cut, my hair was completely flat and it looked like when someone cuts a watermelon and turns it into a helmet. I couldn’t tell them I hated it. I didn’t know whether to cry or get a drink. And they charged more than my usual salon!
Trinity Jones, 24, artist
I didn’t realize it was my bad hair day at the time, because I was a little girl and I decided to cut my own hair. I cut my own bangs, but I was very proud and I felt happy to go to school with bangs that I cut myself. It wasn’t until years later that my parents showed me old photos and I realized what my hair really looked like.
Jenny Houston, 34, payroll specialist
I had just moved to Santa Cruz and I met some other people about my age. One was a girl who was very cute and flirty and she told me she was a hairdresser who needed new clients. She invited me to let her cut my hair, so I went to her salon—for just a normal haircut—but she gave me the worst faux-hawk I’ve ever had in my life. And I found out that she already had a boyfriend.
Nikolas Chan, 47, bartender at MacKenzie Bar & Grill
When I was 16, I decided to dye a blue streak in my blonde hair—but when I applied the color, instead of a streak, it spread through my hair into a blob. So then I had a blue-blob-head. My dad felt so bad about it, he said that I could stay home from school if I wanted to, but I didn’t care. I went to school anyway. The next day I fixed it by making one entire side blue.
Amanda Knox, 23, certified EMT
