PETALING JAYA, Jan 9 — A visit to the hairdresser can either be a success or utter failure.

Case in point is the now-viral story of a man in China, who had the “play” icon shaved onto each side of his head.

This came after the man had apparently paused a video in order for the barber to study the hairdo that he had wanted.

When pausing a video, the triangular “play” icon automatically appears in the centre of the video and hence, the said haircut emerged.

News about the hilarious episode was posted by famous entertainment blogger, Tian Xiu Bot who commented:

“There are not so many rigorous hairdressers like this left.”

The post which was displayed on December 30, 2018 has been shared over 20,000 times on social media, got more than 20,000 comments and over 70,000 likes.

But this isn’t the most hair-raising encounter at the hairdressers.

Here are some other mortifying mane mistakes.

Lopsided locks

Australia’s influential beauty blogger Chloe Morello had a disastrous hairdo in May 2017 when she visited an international hairdressing chain and ended up with an uneven fringe.

Morello who has over one million Instagram followers apparently criticised the famous salon for giving her a “disaster” haircut.

The 20-something brunette took to social media and claimed that the hairstylist ruined her fringe.

“My fringe is literally shorter at the back than it is at the front. What the f**k?” she had said in a video posting.

Green that doesn't inspire envy

Some of us, who have dyed our hair at one time or another, may have heard or even experienced the “Martian effect” before, much to our dismay.

It is when your intended hair colour turns slightly greenish, especially at the ends, instead of blonde, burgundy or hazelnut brown.

Hair experts say the root cause of the problem is due to oxidised copper which binds to hair that’s dry and damaged, and they aptly call this the “Martian effect.”

There isn’t a perfect remedy for this except to snip off the hint of green of the affected hair ends.

The bald truth

She may be one of the most beautiful women in the world but Naomi Campbell may not be a winner when it comes to her crowning glory.

In a Harper’s Bazaar interview in 2017, she opened up about losing hair and having bald patches after decades of exposing her tresses to straighteners, perms, hair dye, extensions, weaves and braids.

When hair is frequently exposed to the aforementioned processes and styling methods, a type of hair loss which begins at the crown of the head known as central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia may occur.

“I do take more care of my hair now, because I lost all of it with extensions,” the supermodel told ES Magazine.

“I am more careful and I do different things.”

Hair like ramen noodles

Perms are meant to make your hair voluminous with springy, sexy curls.

But for tarogers24, who wrote on www.littlethings.com, her (we’re assuming the writer’s a she) tresses was under a lot of stress after a perm that it resembled ramen noodles!

“I wanted nothing more than to have beautiful, golden beachy waves. So I went to my stylist and asked for a loose perm. She said, ‘Okay, but your hair will be a little more damaged than it normally is after bleaching it!’ Naively, I agreed to it.

“My stylist didn’t tell me, however, that perming bleached hair is literally the worst thing you could ever do to your locks.

“When it was done, it looked like ramen noodles, kind of like Justin Timberlake’s hair way back when. When I showered, it would break off in my hand, and it felt like very, very weak elastic,” she wrote.