Slow learner equals bad hair

So shortly after I moved to St. Louis from the East Coast I was on the hunt for a stylist. I wanted someone who knew what to do with fine hair and who could do dimensional color. I followed a friends recommendation - a friend who did not have hair anything like mine but the only friend I had here so far - and went to her stylist. I went in before my cut was too grown out so she could get a good idea of where I was. This is where I was (more or less):

That picture was taken after I'd had a few beers and also after I'd had my share of oysters. My hair was about that length but I'd added more highlights for summer.

The second time I went to her I came home with this:

 

Nope, my hair is not tucked behind my ear. It's also all one color; she assured me that I had enough highlights in my hair that it would look great with one color processing. As you can see I was unhappy.... Having it fixed is one of my mom's favorite stories since she went with me to a local salon that Saturday. The girl's face was pricless as she kept combing through my hair trying to figure out a solution. My mom dissolved in fits of giggles until I finally - through tears said, "What? What is so funny!!!" The girl very quietly said, "There's kind of a hole that forms every time I comb through it."

So you'd think that I would be very careful of where I got my hair cut, right? Well, after a couple more stylist switches I found a great girl, Katie, who cuts my hair. She doesn't have fine hair but she seems to "get it" and my color is always right on. Last fall, after growing my hair out for the last few years I went shorter as evidenced here:

I loved the shorter hair and have rocked it ever since. I'm finally dating a guy who doesn't mind short hair, actually he likes it, and since I turned 40 I decided to stick with shorter hair. Long hair when your hair is fine is such a pain in the butt!

 But I decided after growing out the layers a bit that I wanted not shorter but more piecey. But that didn't work so well as my layers kept flipping up because my fine hair has cowlicks. So I went to a local quick cuts place and had (let's call her Kasey)cut it a little shorter to help with the flippiness. I knew Katie was so busy because she is going back to school and swamped; so it was an easy solution. Well, I liked the cut a lot so when my color grew out, I decided to cheat on my stylist with Kasey. I went in for just a few shorter pieces around my face and some nice caramelly highlights; just a few. I also told her my boyfriend had requested I go more brown which I was okay with since I'd been dying my hair pretty bright red lately. So her first try at the cut left me with a (one) very definite layer about halfway between my crown and the ends of my hair. Like a shelf all along my hair. So I pointed that out and asked for it to be fixed. She said she had to add more layers, and proceeded to cut all over my hair.

Here are the results (Please make sure you're sitting down)

Yeah, this is the best I can do without pulling the front back ala Snookie or running a french twists down both sides along the hairline. I didn't flat iron it this morning, but even that doesn't help much. I've put smoothing serum and hairspray in it in an attempt to help and....



Well, and it's not helping. You should see it after it's wet if I can't style it. It's also really blonde on top. White blonde and chunky.








Once again, I have a bad haircut. I'm not sure this can be saved; but I guess my only option is to call my stylist, admit my infidelity and plead for help. Send good thoughts or hats!