Kat Dennings Cut Her Own Bangs for the New Year and Wants to Know What You Think
Little in this world gives me more agita than the thought of cutting my own bangs. Although I’ve sported fringe many times throughout my life, it has always been cut by hairstylists in salons — and even a few of those times didn’t turn out so hot. Needless to say, I’m not about to take that risk with my own unskilled mitts and a sharp object near my eyes. Kat Dennings, however, is apparently much braver than I am, because she shared her DIY bangs chop with a staggering and admirable level of DGAFness.
Dennings posted the video to Instagram over the weekend but informed viewers in the caption that “I did this in 2021” — AKA last week, and perhaps even New Year’s Eve. As I watched her tightly hold about a half-foot-long, maaaybe two-inch-wide swath of hair between her fingers and right in the center of her forehead, my anxiety instantly spiked. She appears to laugh as she takes a small pair of scissors and cuts horizontally across — though whether that laugh was as nervous as mine would’ve been is hard to tell since she set the clip to Cardi B’s “Money” (which somehow upped the suspense in a weird way).
The slice appears to be a bit uneven, but then Dennings goes in with the scissors vertically — a technique lots of pros recommend and use. “The scissors should be pointed straight up in the air, not horizontally,” stylist Matt Fugate has previously told Allure. Justine Marjan has given us similar advice but also shared a trimming technique that Dennings didn’t use: “Place the hair in a comb with no tension,” she said. “Use the comb as a guide for a straight line, then cut upwards with the scissors.” Oops. Well, slightly diagonal finger-tension bangs it is.
The actor goes in horizontally again before sharing the final results: long, wispy, bangs with curtain potential. To my surprise, she didn’t cut any farther out than just that central piece of hair, so the next level of her face-framing layers jumps to about mouth-length. But while it may sound like a few additional transitional snips may be in order, it really does look quite cute. But this is Kat Dennings we’re talking about — what wouldn’t look cute on her?
Dennings finished the video by signaling that she’d like viewers’ opinions on how it turned out, giving a thumbs-up, thumbs-down, and a shrug. And this is Instagram we’re talking about, so you know people shared their opinions. “Its bad but not too bad!!! I did the same thing yesterday!!!😂😂😂🔥,” one fan wrote, while another said, “OMG I LOVE IT.. IT SUITS U PERFECTLY UGHHHHHHHHHH.” But perhaps it was the commenter who wrote, “I think you’ve inspired all of us to make what could be the biggest mistake of our lives 😬,” who really nailed what many of us are feeling. I don’t even love-love how it came out, and yet, I’m suddenly considering bangs again.
Well, if I go through with it, I’ll tell you this much: Unlike our brave DIY hero, Kat Dennings, I’ll be trusting a pro, not my clumsy hands, to do a bang-up job.
