The first time I cut my hair off was a few months after I graduated high school. There was a big transition in my life and I decided “why not”. The high school social norms that has bound me for four years were gone, I was moving to a new city and I decided to just go for it. After all, it is only hair and it will grow back. Everyone who has ever gone through “the chop” will tell you how empowering it is to cut it all off and although it sounds cliché, it is not wrong. Cutting my hair off was one of the best decisions I made for myself, and after growing it out and ending up cutting it all off again, I can confidently say the pixie is here to stay.

So if you are thinking about getting a pixie cut, I will always say just do it. If you hate it, it will grow back and maybe you will end up loving it.

Here are a few things that happened when I cut my hair off:

1. Some people will question it and some people will love it

This is true of pretty much anything you do in life, some people will be critics. Some people told me I looked like a boy while others told me I rocked it. But ultimately it was up to me to feel confident in it no matter what anyone said.

2. I started wearing more makeup

Without any hair to hide behind, I started putting more effort into my face. For the first time in my life, I really got into how I did my makeup and how I took care of my skin. I started to notice things about my face that I had never noticed before. Like my jaw line and what my face shape was.

3. I had more confidence in outfits I wouldn’t usually wear

Cutting my hair short made every outfit I wore feel more trendy. I felt like more of a badass when I wore my leather jacket and I had more confidence to rock a blazer with jeans. I took more fashion “risks” that I would have been too self conscious to wear before I cut my hair. For me, cutting my hair short was like removing the safety net in my fashion world. It inspired me to be more daring with what I wore.

4. I felt more feminine

Long hair is often seen as a staple “girly-girl” look and cutting it off allowed me to find my femininity in things other than my hair. At first I wore more dresses and high heels because I was afraid of people thinking I was a man but as I grew more confident in it I realized that hair does not define gender and it certainly does not define my femininity. Having short hair made me feel more feminine than when my hair was long.

5. I felt empowered

I already mentioned how much of a cliché this sounds like, but it was so true in my case. Cutting off my hair felt like a rebellion. It was a decision I made that was for me alone and no one else had any say in. It was something that I did for myself that made me feel like I could take control of my life. For me, it was grabbing the reins of my life and telling the world “I can do anything”. I felt free from fear of being judged and I learned to be confident in who I was without worrying so much about what other people thought of me.

So if you are thinking about cutting your hair short, I can’t encourage you enough to go for it. It is freeing, it is empowering, and it saves me so much time in the morning not having to blow dry and straighten hair and worry about damaging it so much. It is one of the best decisions I made for myself and I would encourage everyone to try it, at least once. You never know unless you try.