Restore Me

In Restore Me, Juliette and Warner both cut their hair, dramatic changes that take their long locks into short buzz cuts. For Warner, this arises as an element of practicality after Kenji botches cutting his hair in the first chapters. Though Warner snipes at Kenji for the error, the fact that he allowed it in the first place foreshadows the nascent friendship that emerges between them over the course of the novel. This friendship, like the haircut, does not go right when Juliette is forcing the two people she loves together. After shaving off the damaged cut, Warner finds himself surprised to find his hair shorter than he expected. He repeatedly runs his fingers through it, only to find he does not have enough length to do so. This reveals a nervous tic that Warner did not previously recognize. The soothing motion thus becomes, for Warner, a shocking moment, where he realizes both that he needs soothing and that he cannot have it. The haircut for Warner thus symbolizes the increased chaos in his life and the loss of his previous mechanisms for managing that chaos.

Meanwhile, Juliette cuts off all her hair on a drunken impulse later in the novel.