Adventures in men's grooming: Spring hair style solutions

In the same way that Rick Mercer gets Jann Arden to do things she wouldn't normally do, my colleague Michelle da Silva has a way of getting me to go to events I don't usually go to. Though not to things nearly as terrifying. Or maybe I just don't scream as much.

First, it was a ballet class with Ballet BC (which I enjoyed and is actually a great muscle workout—ballet isn't just for men, you know).

This time around, it was men's grooming.

I didn't realize I would wind up getting a makeover. But with spring in the air, it was high time to transform myself into the delicate blossom that I truly am.

I was paired up with hair stylist Jacob Rozenberg at Moods Hair Salon in Yaletown. Rozenberg was the Canadian winner of the 2013 American Crew All Star Challenge and was named the 2010 B.C. Stylist of the Year by the Mirror Awards. With those credentials, surely he could help me overcome my chronic styling problems.

The hairy situation: After a month since my last haircut, my hair had grown so unruly on the top, it was losing shape.

I asked Jacob if he could try a cut that I could wear with the hair on top styled forward. I'd had some good haircuts but I always had trouble styling it the way I wanted to.

Over the past few months, I'd been experimenting with a number of hair products, including paste, wax, jelly, peanut butter, paper mâché, macramé—well, maybe not the first few things—with varying degrees of success.

When my hair grows out, it tends to have a mind of its own and becomes difficult to style. In fact, one hairdresser mistook it for Hokusai's famous Great Wave Off Kanagawa.

The solution: Jacob drew inspiration from the current trend in men's hairstyling with hair long on the top (often slicked back) and extremely short on the sides.

However, rather than shave the sides, he implemented a fade: he cut close to the scalp near my sideburns, in a diagonal gradation towards the crown of my head.

He also cut the hair close to the corners of my hairline to avoid it looking like a combover (no offense to those who enjoy that look).

He trimmed the bangs slightly but left enough proportionate length to play around with.

On the upper sides of the back of my head, my hair had grown out in a boxy shape. Accordingly, he cropped the hair closer to the scalp, removing some bulk (it actually felt lighter) and retaining a silhouette that hugged the curves of my head. 

To counteract my hair's tendency to turn into a wave that surfers want to ride, he recommended a technique to "confuse" my hair's natural direction.

He applied pliable fiber hair product (with high hold and low shine—he advised me to avoid using products with too much shine for my hair type) into my hair, then combed and blow-dried my hair flat to one side of my head, and then blow-dried and combed it flat in the opposite direction. He repeated these steps and then brushed it forward. 

Et voilà, here's the final product:

Postscript: So it's been a few days since my cut and I haven't really put in the effort to blow-dry my hair in the manner that Jacob advised. Nonetheless, I've been pleased with it overall.

The upside is that I can now go hang ten on the beach, rather than in my hair.