Kristen Kish Has Pandemic Haircut Troubles Like The Rest Of Us

It's clear that Kristen Kish is fearless. We've seen it on Top Chef, with the way she leaned into challenges that might have made other chefs blanch. We've seen it in the daring decisions she has made in her career, including opening up her Austin, Texas restaurant, Arlo Grey, after having taken significant time off from the culinary world. Now we're seeing it in the way the Korean-American chef and television host approaches her pandemic haircut troubles — which, thanks to Kish's enviable beauty, can't honestly be said to amount to "troubles" so much as "creative excursions." 

Be that as it may, it would be hard to find someone who couldn't relate to Kish's Feb. 10 Instagram post, in which she revealed her pandemic-related follicular misadventures. Let's face it, we've all had to deal with pandemic hair problems, at least to some extent. In the early months, those problems tended to stem from the fact that the places we normally went for haircuts were, by and large, closed for business.

As time has gone on, it seems pervasive boredom has become the bigger factor, leading to such questionable decisions as dying our hair pink or finally giving that pixie cut a try. As it turns out, Kish is just like the rest of us, albeit slightly more gorgeous and talented.

"Over 5 months ago I buzzed by head," Kristen Kish confessed in an Instagram post that doesn't actually show us the buzzcut. Rather, it shows Kish with a stylish take on the phenomenon known by the many who've endured it as the "pixie grow-out." Something no one tells you about going super-short is just how hard it is to grow it out. The other thing no one tells you is just how much maintenance short hair actually requires, including the need for frequent trims. 

As Kish pointed out in her post, for the first three months post-buzz, she tried to keep up — only to find it was simply too much work. Then, almost two months after that, Kish gave in to the siren song of the hair clippers once again. Although she didn't specifically say so, those who have been there might reasonably assume this was Kish's response to that inevitable moment in every grow-out period when you just can't take it anymore. 

Grow-out veterans know this is just a phase, and you have to push through it. But Kish apparently had to learn the hard way. Her recent buzzing expedition resulted in "two holes" in her hair, leaving her to decide it might be time to "step away from the clippers for a while." Of course, the irony really is how glamorous Kish actually looks, hair holes or no hair holes.