If personal preference were the only factor, how would you wear your hair?

Down to my waist, blunt cut.

I would revisit my “basic infantry training” raw clipper buzz cut. But people tell me it makes me look like a Neo-Nazi skinhead. So I go for short, but not that short.

It just seems that when women reach a certain age, long tresses contribute to them looking tired and dragged down. I just cut mine last year and it’s still blunt cut…but, it’s perkier and probably gives my overall look at bit of a lift.

Thick, gorgeous locs a la Lauryn Hill

I haven’t done it because it’s a process, and I’m too impatient.

But Liz, you have great hair!

Dark brown, straight bob, just above chin length. Straight and smooth with a very slight curl at the end – just enough to keep it from being stick straight. Side swept long bangs, sides tucked behind my ears.

Tried it. It looks crappy with the shape of my face. The only part of me it suits is my personality.

Most of the year I’d want a no-care buzz, but in the winter I do like my long thick hair because it’s really warm, I mostly don’t need a hat…

Long, straight, blunt cut.

A sleek,shiny black bob with short bangs.This will never happen…but I like it. :)

And so—why don’t you?

@Jeruba-Me? It would not be flattering on me.At all.I had a haircut like that a long time ago.People chased me with bags! XD

I’d love to have a short pixie style haircut like this. The colour would be brown of course. What holds me back? I’m scared

My preference changes so much I can’t quite pin it down. Ideally, I would be able to change the length and color at will. Right now, I want hair about three inches short that’s sky blue. Tomorrow, I might want hair my current length halfway down my back the color of strawberry ice cream. The next day, I may feel like being a curly haired blonde. What keeps me from doing the colors right now is that I may or may not be getting a respectable job in the near future. My reasons for keeping my hair long are threefold: 1) My boyfriend prefers it long. 2) It’s winter and I would be cold with short hair. 3) I have pretty amazing hair and I would miss my long hair. What I am going to end up doing is getting about 6 inches cut off the end and having the bleached part of my hair dyed to match my natural color. Then again, I could change my mind and decide to cut all my hair off. It’s going to take me a while to decide.

I would either have long, curly red hair or no hair at all.

Currently, my hair is dyed the reds that I’ve liked best thus far. However, I have naturally stick straight hair and I can’t get curls without a perm. And those just never seem to go quite how I want. Plus, growing my hair as long as I would want it to be would take too long. I don’t have that kind of patience.

As for just shaving my head, I don’t have the face for it. I think that there are women who look great with really short or no hair. (Sinead O’Connor and Natalie Portman come to mind.) I just don’t have that high-cheekboned, great smile kind of look.

I’ve had my hair so many different colors I don’t remember my natural color. I use to say I’d be a 99 year old woman who still colors her hair. Now, I am turning 50 this year and seriously considering a very short spikie cut and letting the gray grow out and no color. Out of four girls in my family, only two of us have ever dyed our hair. All premature gray.

I think I’d like dreadlocks….I don’t know if I’m up for being stereotyped constantly (especially a stereotype that I’m not really even close to) and I’m also scared….I have nice hair, and it’s really long, and I’m scared that I would dread it, hate it, have to cut it, then hate the way I look for a year. Ay carumba.

Super short, like Halle Berry. I had this haircut for a couple of years, and I went straight from long, thick hair down to my butt to this crazy short, razor cut and thinned style. I absolutely loved it! It was so freeing, and very flattering to my face. Made me look and feel younger, too.

However, it was just too much daily trouble. The style required that I do something to it every day. At the very least I had to wet it down (since I don’t wash my hair every day), and usually I had to add product (dry wax) to make it do what I wanted. Not to mention the frequent cuts to keep it in shape! Too much trouble, too much money. I am a pony tail girl, all the way. That, and the fact that my girls weren’t big fans. They prefer their mommy with long hair.

My hair is doing pretty much what I like. It’s long enough to ponytail and shagged enough to wave all over. And iIve let the grey grow out but it’s a color mix I like, my original that I haven’t seen for so many years! with the new gray. If I could have anything else it would a mix of brown and blond streaks, the same style but I don’t think I want roots ever again.

How I long for sweet 1940s curls a la Lauren Bacall!

With a good stylist and plenty of product my hair could do it, but it probably wouldn’t hold for very long, and it sure wouldn’t stay so neat. My hair just loves being straight!

I’d go for a side-swept fringe for the front, and I’d spike the back up. Like a manga character! Very boyish, which I secretly like. I managed to almost achieve that 9 months ago, with hair cream in my hair after showers, but the cream was inevitably not strong enough considering the length of my hair.

Actually this makes me feel like experimenting in the mirror right now!

I might be the first man to post in this thread…heh.

When I was a teenager I shaved my head with electric clippers on a weekly basis. It is by far the most comfortable and fun style I’ve ever adopted – I only grew it out after deciding that although it felt great, it wasn’t a very flattering look for me. Currently I wear it in a rather long pony tail, but I plan to cut it off come summertime. I don’t think I’ll go for the shaved head look ever again – when I was a punk kid in the 80s trying to be weird, it served a purpose, but now I’m pretty sure I would look more like an escaped mental patient/serial killer.

Like this beautiful lady’s

With a lot of teasing I can make my hair look like that but I wish it looked like this without having to spend time on it.

So, @Jeruba, how about you? What’s your preference?

I like it long and straight or a little wavy, and I’m going there now. It’s not as thick or as smooth as I’d wish, and never has been, and it’s no longer honey blonde either, but it is growing out. And I do not care if it would look better shorter. I’m old enough to please myself. I may never cut it again.

I really like a full, rounded, layered collar-length style, too. It looks good, and that’s how I wore it through the last of my professional days, but I am sick of all the fussing and the acres of products involved. It’s not how I want to spend my time.

The reason I asked is that I let other factors than my own preference rule me for so long—and I just wondered how many others (both men and women) have a secret yearning for a completely different style that they don’t actually feel free to wear.

Interesting. I’ve never wanted a style I felt I couldn’t wear due to outside forces – like a job or a husband. I did take my mate’s preferences into consideration, I didn’t let them decide for me. (My first husband was absolutely horrified when I decided to get that really short cut. He ended up loving it, though!)

I worked in a professional environment for years, and had many different hair styles throughout, including super long. I just used barrettes and headbands to tame it and make it look more professional. I suppose if my secret dream style had been a mohawk, my answer would be different.

@Jeruba I also do feel I might be too old for longer hair and I’m pretty sure I look better with my hair fluffier but I can’t be bothered. At least I can wake up, brush my hair and be presentable. With shorter hair one side might stick upwards and the other be plastered to my head.

I have “bad” hair—very fine, rapidly thinning, dulled by too many chemical treatments over too many years. I’m a victim of my own vanity, I’m sorry to say. If I didn’t feel so “judged” by my physical appearance, I’d love to shave my head—or at least have a very, very short, tight do. But my professional persona, at least my perception of my professional personna, stops me from doing that. And if I could choose the hair I really want, I’d take a silky, medium-length, medium brown with some auburn and gold highlight, perfectly cut to bring out the best of my features. A girl can dream.

My fantasy would be to have very thick full long hair, or red hair like the girl in this photo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58603786@N07/sets/72157625850718523/