I chopped off all my hair while we were in Paris. Okay, maybe not all of my hair — but a good three inches.

It all started when I saw my mother before my flight from LAX to CDG and she let me know my hair was reaching creepy status. Gotta love a mommy who tells it like it is.

An idea clicked when I realized that one of my favorite hair stylists Rubi Jones now lives in Paris. I follow her hair blog She Lets Her Hair Down religiously, and a quick email exchange snagged me a spot with her in between her gigs for Men’s Fashion Week (yes, what a life!).

Here are the before shots:

And here are the after ones:

It was a big adjustment to lose so much length. I kept doing double takes in mirrors as we shopped the Galeries Lafayette. Rubi’s big thing is getting tons of movement in hair — and I love the freshness and the framing from the cut.

And a big plus is with less length, my hair is infinitely easier to style into up-dos:

I do plan to grow my hair back — I think long hair suits my bone structure best. But when it grows long, I hope to keep the movement and the framing that Rubi so deftly achieved with her shears.

Any suggestions for San Francisco hair stylists? (Paris is just a bit too far away for a regular hair cut — although I very much wish it wasn’t.)