When Curiosity Takes Over by CurlyBuzz

---

Throughout my whole life I had maintained pretty much the same style- a dark curly mop I kept around 6 inches long. Every few months I’d get an inch or two taken off, always tempted to change it up but never doing it. Over the years I had developed a bit of a buzz cut fetish and deep down wanted to buzz all my hair off. But I had never had never had any part of my hair cut by clippers before.

That was, until this past summer. I had just finished my sophomore year of college, and instead of going home for the summer like I had in previous years, I was going to stay on campus to get ahead on my classes and enjoy a summer to myself. My family was across the state, about a 6 hour drive away. And my friend group was split all over the country, some leaving for summer internships and some going back to their families.

The summer was hot though, like over 100 degrees before noon hot. I wasn’t used to extreme heat like this, and anytime I was outside for a few minutes, I would sweat a lot. It made my hair a mess, and I needed to shower twice a day to keep it under control. About a week into summer, I decided I could use a haircut, maybe a little shorter than normal but not planning to do anything drastic.

I went to the mall and asked for about two inches taken off at my usual haircut place. There was nothing special about them, but the price was right. It was a pretty quick cut, before I knew it it was over and I was back out in the mall, just enjoying the free air conditioning. After a little while I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. At this moment, it was like a switch went off inside my head. Here I am 21 years old, with the same hairstyle I’ve had since I was a small child. The heat is scorching, I’m probably not going to see anyone I know for two months, and all of a sudden I was itching for a change.

Down one of the back hallways of the mall was a small barbershop. I had never been to a proper barbershop before, and I had just gotten my haircut an hour ago. But I decided to go inside for my second haircut if the day. There were no customers, just one barber tidying up his station. He motioned me over to his chair, and I sat down. Right away, I started to internally freak out and question what I was doing. But no, I wanted this, and it was happening.

Before I could chicken out, I asked for about half the length to be taken off the top with scissors, and the sides to be cut with the longest guard on the clippers. Without much response, the Barber spun be around so I was facing away from the mirror, and went to work.

The feeling of the clippers working their way up the sides of my head was incredible, and it was a feeling I couldn’t have imagined. Surprisingly, this cut was even faster than the last one, and when he spun me around to take a look in the mirror, I couldn’t help but smile. I had about 3 inches left on the top, but my sides were buzzed down to an inch. I knew I would feel some relief from the heat from this, but I wanted more.

For the rest of the day, i couldn’t stop rubbing the sides of my head. After a few hours of trying to function normally, it became clear to me that I needed to feel that all over my head. I wanted to be buzzed, and I needed to do it before I changed my mind. At around 9:30pm, the same day I had already gotten two full haircuts, I headed to the drug store to my myself a set of clippers. In 30 minutes I was back, and itching to plug the clippers in and get to work.

I arranged all the guards that came with the set from longest to shortest, and snapped the #8 guard on the clippers, not believing what I was about to do. But out of pure adrenaline I plunged the clippers through the 3 inches of hair I still had on top. Most of the length tumbled into the sink, and the length that remained matched the sides I had done at the mall. I did it, I gave myself a buzz cut- #8 guard all over. I didn’t even care how it looked, i was so happy. I fell asleep rubbing my hair nonstop.

I woke up in the morning, and looked in the mirror. I loved what I saw, realizing I was super fortunate to have a good head shape and intact hairline. But curiosity took over again, I decided I had to go shorter. 90% of my hair was already gone, what was a little bit more right? I wanted to see how it looked with shorter sides

I plugged the clippers back in, snapped on the #4 guard, a half inch, and started going up the sides of my head. Yikes, it was cutting off a lot. As I made my way around, I realized how bad it looked, as I had no way to blend in the top to the sides, which were half as long. Regret started to set in as I realized the only fix was to take the top down to a #4 also, so that’s what I did.

Now this was a buzzcut. There was no curl left at all, but I couldn’t take my hands off my head. I could see my scalp peeking through the half inch of hair that was left. I couldn’t cut off any more could it? But I wasn’t thinking logically anymore. If I went from 6+ inches to a half inch or hair in one day, did it really matter what happened to the half inch? I snapped the #2 guard on the clippers and went to town again.

I was freaking out, but looking in the mirror, couldn’t do anything but smile and keep rubbing the remaining stubble. I swapped the guard out for a #1 and repeated the process. Now I was pretty much bald, and in disbelief. I started to imaging the reactions that were to come from those that new me with the long hair. Would they be any different if I went all the way? I didn’t think so. I took the guard off and repeated the process one more time, scraping away any hair that remained. I was bald, except for a slight 5 o’clock shadow of stubble. The feeling was incredible, and I hopped into the shower.

Without even thinking, I brought my shaving cream and razor into the shower, lathered up, and started shaving away. Literally, shaving my head bald, something 24 hours earlier I could never have imagined doing. I got in the shower and just stared into the mirror- I really went all the way. It felt like a new start, now I just had to reveal it to the outside world

I knew that if I didn’t cut it at all, I’d basically have a buzz cut by the time I saw any friends or family again, and that was the plan. But that smooth feeling was so addicting, I couldn’t stop myself from shaving it again after a few days. I grew it out for about two weeks, but then buzzed it off and shaved it smooth again. And that’s how it stayed, my signature curls replaced by nothing but a bald head.

---