My youngest had a trim three weeks ago. My oldest got hers done before school photos. My husband goes every six weeks like clockwork and does not even think about it.
I checked my calendar last week. My last haircut was fourteen months ago. Fourteen. I remember it because it was before we moved.
Nobody did this to me. That is the uncomfortable part. I did it to myself, one small skipped appointment at a time, and I told myself a series of extremely reasonable things along the way.
Here are the excuses, and what happened when I actually looked at them.
First, the Tally
I sat down and worked out what our household actually spends on hair in a year. Three kids, a husband, and me.
The kids get cut every couple of months. My husband every six weeks. Me, apparently, annually if I am lucky. When I added up the appointments, four out of five people in this house are on a schedule and one is on a vibe.
This is not unique to me, which was both comforting and a bit annoying to discover. Statistics Canada’s time use research found that women spend less time on leisure than men, and are more likely to be doing leisure activities at the same time as unpaid work. So even the downtime is not really downtime.
And the strain shows up in the data too. A Canadian Women’s Foundation survey found that nearly 46% of mothers said they were reaching their breaking point, with 70% worried about their family’s mental health.
We are worried about everyone else’s wellbeing, all the time and mostly without being asked. Meanwhile my ponytail has been the exact same ponytail since last spring.
Excuse One: I Didn’t Have a Salon Nearby
This one felt real for about a year, and it was the easiest to hide behind.
We moved. My old stylist was hours away. I did not know anyone here. Booking a haircut suddenly meant researching strangers, reading reviews, guessing, and possibly wasting money on a cut I would hate. That is genuinely more effort than it sounds when you are already tired.
So I did nothing, for a very long time, and told myself it was a logistics problem.
What actually solved it was embarrassingly simple. Davines has a salon finder on their Canadian site that shows you which salons near you actually carry and work with their products. You put in your location and it gives you real partner salons in your area.
I cannot overstate how much friction that removed. It turned “somewhere out there is a good stylist” into a short list of actual places within driving distance, and it meant the salons on that list were using products I already knew I liked. For anyone who has moved and lost their person, this is the shortcut I wish I had found a year earlier.
The excuse died in about four minutes. That was a little humbling.
Excuse Two: It Isn’t in the Budget
Let me be honest about the math here, because I think a lot of us do this one.
We budget for the kids’ cuts without blinking. My husband’s cuts are a line item. Mine somehow became a luxury purchase that needed justifying, even though it would happen a quarter as often as anyone else’s.
When I actually costed it, getting my hair cut three times a year was less than what we spend on the kids’ hair, and roughly what we spend on one moderately enthusiastic grocery run.
It was never a budget problem. It was a permission problem. I had quietly categorized myself as the family expense you cut first.
Excuse Three: I Don’t Have the Time
This one is the most persuasive and the least true.
I have found time for orthodontist appointments, vet appointments, and a two-hour round trip for a birthday party favor. The time exists. It just gets allocated to other people by default, because that is the habit.
The cost of running on empty is documented, and it is not just crankiness. Statistics Canada reported that among unpaid caregivers, 56% felt tired because of their responsibilities, 44% felt worried or anxious, and 37% felt overwhelmed.
Research in the Canadian Journal of Public Health has also examined the specific conditions of care that predict mental health outcomes for unpaid caregivers across the country, using nationally representative survey data alongside in-depth interviews.
None of this means a haircut fixes burnout. It clearly does not. But two hours where someone else is looking after me, in a chair, with no one asking where their shoes are, turns out to matter more than I expected.
What Finally Got Me in the Chair
My daughter asked me why I never get my hair done.
Not meanly. Genuinely curious. And I did not have an answer that I wanted her to grow up repeating.
That is the part I keep coming back to. My kids are watching how I treat myself, and they are learning what a mother is allowed to need. I am teaching them something whether I intend to or not.
So I booked it. I used the locator, picked a salon, and went. It was not a transformation. I did not come home a new woman. My hair just looked like someone had made a decision about it, which after fourteen months was enough.
If You Are the One Who Skips
Check your last haircut date. Actually check it, do not estimate, because I estimated and I was off by six months.
Then figure out which excuse you are running. Mine was three excuses stacked on top of each other, and only one of them was a real logistical problem, and even that one took four minutes to solve once I sat down and tried.
The rest was just habit. Habits are changeable, even the ones that feel like personality.