I went back and forth for weeks: do I cut my hair short, dare to try a new colour, or once again, succumb to temptation and get bangs? The only thing I knew for sure was that I needed a change. I was struggling to make a decision because I had spent years growing my hair to waist-length, so while I craved a refresh, chopping it all off felt fraught with risk.
Ultimately, Hailey Bieber made the decision for me. After flicking through her Instagram snaps from Coachella, I decided that what I needed was her exact hair, so much so that I booked a salon appointment that very afternoon. Hailey’s butterfly cut would soon be mine.
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“The butterfly cut is super popular at the moment,” Natalia Infantes, co-founder and co-creative director of NiM Salón, told me. “It’s characterised by long layers – though some people make them even more dramatic by bringing them up to the shoulders. It gets its name from the type of layering around the face, with several layers styled inwards, adding texture and movement that resembles butterfly wings.”
Usually, a butterfly cut has between two and six layers, Manu Guillén, Infantes’ co-founder, said. This depends on the hair’s density and length. In my case, we landed on four.
I left the salon incredibly happy – my hair has never looked so good. While it looked different (which is what I wanted), I’d managed to keep the length I’d worked so hard (and waited so long) to achieve, hadn’t resorted to repeating my old bangs, and avoided the damage of bleach. A subtle transformation, but a transformation nonetheless, I achieved the change I was searching for without sacrificing my hair in the process. Thanks, HB.
