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The Guardian

‘Friends stared at me dumbfounded': Guardian Australia staff share their most traumatic haircuts. What was yours?

A tradie went viral this week after blowing up at a barber who he claimed left him with a lopsided buzz cut. The tradesman insisted on paying for the allegedly substandard haircut before storming out. The exchange has sparked a conversation online, with some saying they would never be brave enough to complain and others recounting their worst haircut experiences. Here Guardian Australia writers – in what almost became a group therapy session – tell us about their worst haircuts. You can share yours in the comments below. Graham Readfearn I was in the middle of an almost year-long backpacking trip around the world in 2000. My hair was getting what I'd describe as quite lustrous but my then girlfriend had another word. Anyway, we were in a town somewhere south of Santiago and I gave in and found a barber. I emerged into the Chilean sun looking like the love child of a 1960s Paul McCartney and Sharon Strzelecki. At least I didn't stick out – every other male seemed to have the same haircut. And no, I don't have pictures. Janine Israel When I moved to London, paying for a haircut seemed prohibitively expensive. So I signed up to be a 'hair model' (AKA guinea pig) at a fancy salon in Covent Garden. The waiver I signed meant I was handing myself over to the stylist to do whatever they pleased. My hairdresser said he wanted to replicate the hairstyle he'd given the day before to a woman with dead-straight blond hair on my shoulder-length curly brown hair. Then he proceeded to cut my hair to the length and shape of a cheap clown wig, with a bizarre band of 2cm-long tufts around the hairline. It might have looked edgy on the blond but on me it looked like a lawnmower had broken down midway doing through the job, and from the horrified look on the hairdresser's sweating face, he knew it. Nick Miller Quite early in my career at the West Australian newspaper I switched from dark brown to blond hair, for no clear reason I can now remember. They stopped sending me to political doorstops as a brand protection measure. After that I had bright red hair and an eyebrow ring, again I can't recall why, and they switched me to a desk-bound column job for a while, and the main editorial cartoonist drew a caricature that senior editors shared around afternoon news conference. Luca Ittimani I went on a TV show and said if I won the trophy I'd get a bowl cut with it. I won, and my mate put the trophy on my head and chopped. I do not have the straight Beatle-style locks required to keep a bowl cut flat so it just looked like half my normal wavy hairdo had gone missing. But I was committed – I kept the cut for nearly a month, the constant expansion of the hair above my ears only accentuated by the absence of anything below. Who knew my forehead could look so big? Ben Doherty I've got a mate who's a rock star. He's admirably self-effacing about it but that's what he is: a bona-fide, write-in-on-your-tax-return, rock star. We used to kick around in bands together but he was always destined for greater things: his life is now sold-out stadiums across the US, pool parties with the Wu-Tang Clan, his face on T-shirts. Allied to his extraordinary musical talent, this man has an effortless, charming charisma. He went and got a haircut that was very cool at the time: a supremely high buzz cut up the sides, betopped by a cheeky fringe. He wore it, it looked amazing. I thought, 'Yeah, I could totally nail that.' I did not nail it. It was awful and aggressive and made me look thuggish. Photos from the time make me cringe. I think I ended up just shaving my head and starting again – chastened and altogether more careful about trying to be cool. Gabrielle Jackson I was going through a major life change in London – I'd quit my job and was planning to travel and write a book, so felt I needed a new haircut to reflect the new me. I decided to leave my old hairdresser of many years, thinking she was too edgy and 'didn't get me'. So I tried out a new, very expensive and 'trendy' hairdresser in London, who had given friend the most perfect bob. At this new place they give you a glass of wine before the cut, so the stylist can get to you know you. Overcome by how cool the hairdresser was, I gave my consent to an asymmetrical bob. It was so bad – everyone I knew just stared at me dumbfounded. I went out for a drink and who was the only other person in the bar? My old hairdresser! And I felt personally attacked by the Fleabag asymmetrical bob storyline.