My alter ego, Stephawnnnnn 💋💕
One of my roommates in college was a gay guy. Usually I don’t feel the need to necessarily list sexual orientation, but it helps set the scene of just how important the situation was…
One evening I was in the living room and I heard him scream from his bedroom. I ran back there and asked if he was ok. He yelled, “COME HERE!!!” (He was in his bathroom…) I went in and he was standing in front of the sink holding the back of his head. I got real scared and said, “Oh my gosh, are you ok?!” He said no and dropped his hand and turned to show me his head… there it was, he had accidently cut a perfect lawn mower type swath of hair off of the back of his head with his clippers!
I immediately went from panic to complete relief and laughed because i was expecting to see a gaping wound! He goes, “C’mon this isn’t funny… haha… WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!?!?” I said, “How did this happen?” “The clipper guard fell off.” “Ok, well you can’t cut the rest of your hair to match, because then you’ll be bald! Sooooooo… Hmmmmmmm… Ooooooo, ok, you can wear a ballcap!” “Girl, I can’t wear a ballcap.” “Why not?! You can borrow one of mine!” (Side note, you all know I’m a huge tomboy and ballcaps are my go to for covering up my hair instead of taking the time to wash it. A tried and true tactic that I absolutely love and 100000000% continue now as a Tired Mama!) Anyways, he goes, “GIRL, I can’t wear a ballcap! I don’t wear ballcaps.” I tried to convince him to just wear one for a few days to let it grow out, but he refused. He had an image and a style to uphold and apparently a ballcap did NOT fit into it!
Ok, so plan B… “Let’s see… Ok, I can feather the sides of the swath so you won’t notice that there is a huge chunk of hair missing!!” He goes, “Are you sure you can do that?” “Um, sure, yeah, no problem.” He looked at me like girrrrrrrrllllll you’d better be right!!! So I grabbed the clippers and put my hand on his shoulder to steady myself and went, “Holy crap, your back is completely wet!” He was so worked up and worried about this that he had broken out in a full body sweat! Like drenched! Too freaking funny!!! I was super nervous too! I definitely didn’t want to make this situation worse and to screw up a young gay man’s hair in his prime, yeah, naw! Definitely not something you want to do! I started real slow… and… it was working!! I was able to feather the sides so that you honestly couldn’t see the missing chunk of hair anymore! Thank God, crisis averted!!!!!! 😅 sooooooooooo that’s Stefawnnnnn’s origin story!
After that Stefawnnnnn took a hiatus for a long time. I didn’t even realize he existed yet. I’ve always joked about having an alter ego, but he didn’t have a name, style or even gender yet. That was until covid hit. Ah, yes, the horrid period surrounding 2020… yikes! Well my mom, sister and I went twice a year to get our hair cut and colored ever since I was 13. Never in my life did I ever think I’d even come close to actually doing hair. I mean, I have had the daydream of being a hairdresser, and how much fun that could be! But the thought of messing someone’s hair up?! No thank you! However, like I said 2020 hit and mom, sis and I had long unruly locks and serious roots to deal with. So, I did some research. Thank you internet!
We have always been a fan of Sally’s Beauty Supply, it’s basically a store for hairdressers. It has everything, which can be really overwhelming when you aren’t sure what you’re looking for… anyways my sis said she would go there and pick out her colors if I was serious about trying to do our hair. Yeah, I mean I think I am… I’ll try my best! Which was enough for her. Luckily, I know my sister and I know her hair! She has course, super thick, super curly hair. It’s gorgeous!! And I’ve heard her complaints over the years of hairdressers not knowing how to cut and style her hair. “Normal” haircuts don’t work for her, because while it might look perfect when it is wet and straight, the second that it starts to dry and curl the cut just doesn’t work. So, with that in mind and the little bit of research I did, I decided to initially cut her hair to get some length off, then told her to dry and style her hair. That way it would curl (cause I had just taken a lot of weight off) and I could dry cut the rest.
I have to admit the first cut was terrifying, but after the initial cut and she styled her hair, I was really confident in the dry cutting because I could see each curl, where they landed, and I could shape it how she wanted! I felt like Edward Scissor Hands and went to town!!! That’s when she got nervous lol but I just kept saying, trust me this looks AWESOME! Well, a snip, snip, here and a snip, snip, there and voila! B-E-A-U-tiful! She looked in the mirror and lost it! This is the best my hair has ever looked!!!!!!! Oh my gosh I love it!
As this developed, so did my alter ego, Stefhawnnnnn. He’s modeled after the Ms.Mary J Blige SNL skit by Bill Hader. Hence, why he always wears a scarf… he needs something to flip dramatically here and there… lol! And it’s also where I got his name, Bill Hader plays one of my all-time favorite characters, Stephon! And that’s how Stephawnnnnn was born! My alter ego Drag King if you will… 😏
This went on for a while, where i would come over and color and cut her hair, until she said, “would you want me to cut yours?” Um, yeah, cause it was all the way down to my butt! But I had reservations… but we were a few glasses of wine in and I said, “Fine, you can cut my hair.” So she does… and she cut too much off the back, so she had to “even it up” aaaaaannnnnndddddd I ended up looking like Lord Farquaad off of Shrek! Oh holy balls, what did you do?! But I didn’t say that because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I graciously went home and cried lol luckily, I hardly ever wear my hair down, so I just rocked a tiny pony and my normal ballcaps until it grew out.
But, now I had to figure out how to cut my own hair! Giving myself highlights and an ombre was hard enough in the mirror! I was terrified to try to cut my own hair! On someone else i can see everything, on myself I’m relying on the bathroom mirror and a hand held mirror! Yikes! I found a do-it-yourself video posted by Pick Up Limes and the way she did her tutorial seemed kind of doable… so i tried it, by myself, in my bathroom, pausing the video and copying each step… it turned out PERFECT! It’s been 6 years now and I love the cut so much it’s all that I do!
Now my mom, sis and i all get together for a hair day! we watch mama mia, then mama mia 2, then sex and the city, or any other chick flick. But we ALWAYS start with Mama Mia! We drink wine and laugh and I cut and color all of our hair. It takes all day, but we just have an absolute BLAST!
My sister now constantly gets compliments from people at work and when they ask who does her hair they are shocked to find out it’s me! Then they say they didn’t realize I went into hairdressing, and are super surprised when they find out I actually didn’t, I just “picked it up, no big deal…”💁♀️LOL
I kick into my alter ego, Stephawnnnnn and get to work! It’s cute too, if Mom or Sis start to question my methods, the other one goes, “Just let Stephawnnnnn do his thing! She’s never been wrong before!” Btw, Stephawnnnnn acknowledges he and she as pronouns ❤️ Never in a million years would I have thought I would do something like this, but it is so much freaking fun!!!!!! Wine, chicken flicks, hanging with my mom and sis and letting my alter ego out! What could be better?!
