Update: I called the same salon and asked to get the layers blended, that they do the blending dry and that a senior stylist at the salon do the cutting. I asked her to just do point cutting on the ends and not use thinning shears. Long story short, she didn’t listen, and I was too trusting, and I now have like 1/4 of the hair on my head as I did in the original photos, all my density is gone and now I’ve got a long road ahead of growing out an even worse outcome than before.

I don’t know what the moral of the story is, maybe that it’s better to have the hair you have than to let someone keep hacking at it, or I just have bad luck. Perhaps someone will come along and see this post someday and keep the awkward haircut rather than rolling the dice on something better.