So today at noon I have a hair appointment with my stylist. I say let's rumble because my hair and I haven't always gotten along on the best of terms. We have a war on a daily basis to make it look good.
First of all every stylist I have (after starting to wrestle with my mane) always says "wow your hair is different. It's not doing anything like how we learned in cosmetology school." "Yep I say that is why I am turning this over to a pro because I can't do a damn thing with it."
My hair is fine like silk, but there's a lot of it. I have three different cowlicks in my hair that make it naturally want to look like someone took their hands and gave me a really bad noogie. It is also completely straight. My natural color is an unimpressive ash blonde color with a slightly green tint (my grandma used to joke it's the Irish blood in my mom's side of the family while she cackled that it looked the color of dirty dishwater). I bemoan the fact that the red undertones didn't come out more.
When I was little my parents insisted my hair be long. Even though I would plead to cut it because every time I moved it seemed to snarl itself in knots that would cause little tears to come out of my eyes while my paternal grandmother raked a comb through my hair. Yep I was a tender head and she was determined that if she just kept yanking eventually it would go away. All it did was overload the nerve endings in my head and cause me to have temporary numbness from the pain.
The efforts to control my long hair were laughable. My mom quickly gave up on it. My Dad's mom picked up the battle after she had retreated from the field saying I needed to look like "a little lady".
Elastic ponytail holders would slip right out after a few minutes of horseplay in the yard. My grandmother's solution was to pull my hair back so tight into the holder that the corners of my eyes were permanently relocated back by my earlobes. In non-politically correct terms we used to say this "made us look Chinese". This would allow the ponytail to last a whole 15 to 10 minutes before flyaway tendrils of hair would burst free of their bonds and swirl in the breeze around my head like Medusa's coils. Ragamuffin was a term thrown around very often as she would chase me around the yard in an effort to re-do the original torture.
Her second attempt was what she deemed "puppy ears" . This was double the torture as my hair was parted down the middle into two sections causing each eye corner to sit at a slightly different angle. After all it was important for the hair to stay in the holder not for me to look normal. None of my friends had to wear puppy ears. The effect was cute and gave Mary Shockley handholds with which to pull my hair in Kindergarten class. Once again my hair always found a way to escape.
A couple years later, my mother in a fit of revenge against my father( whom she had divorced two years earlier) cut my hair into a very stylish "Mary Lou Retton /Dorothy Hamill bob in my 2nd grade year. I think that was one of the first times I ever saw my father cry, he loved my long hair. Looking back on the pic I think it actually made my hair look better.
Of course it was grown back out, after all,little girls have long pretty hair so that they aren't confused with little boys. That was when my paternal grandmother (whom I was living with full time by now) staged her third attempt at making my hair behave. Shirley Temple Curls. She decided to do this on school picture day and despite my best efforts at undoing her efforts. The horror was captured for posterity.
Junior High marked my attempts to become more of an individual herd member. I wanted to fit in after all. So I decided I needed wispy bangs. The hairstylist my grandmother took me to at this time was the same one that did her and all the old ladies hair in the small town of Ava Mo. She was the queen of the blue hair mushroom do. When I said wispy bangs and showed her the picture of Cindy Lauper she responded by cutting my bangs in the same Bettie Page straight across manner she always had. My grandmother refused to even allow me to put layers in my hair. I was a smart kid and I hatched my own plot to get what I wanted.
In my first fit of rebellion I got out the pinking shears and attempted to give myself wispy bangs. The horrifying result was again captured for posterity in my Jr. High school picture. After that my stylist decided that perhaps she should study up on the latest styles if only to prevent people from thinking that she had murdered my hair.
That was when I decided that my "straight as a string" hair needed some curl to make it "do something". It was the 80's I wanted hair that stood up and out not flopped down. Thus began my love hate affair with permanent waves. I took a picture in of Madonna and pointed out her wavy hair and asked if my stylist could do that. Sure she said we can give you curls. I ended up with a traditional Hailey Mills in the movie parent trap perm a do. I wanted to crawl into a hole as I slunk onto the school bus that next Monday.
On the next try the new stylist in the salon took a crack at my hair. She got the spiral stacking down but she over processed me and I ended up looking like Roseanne Rosannadanna. I will never forget the hour and a half she spend with the thinning shears trying to get my hair to calm down.
This cycle of "good perm bad perm" continued off and on throughout my high school years. I kept my hair long even though I hated it because my father begged me not to cut my hair. I also was not allowed to cut it any shorter than shoulder length and being as my grandparents controlled my access to the stylist. I ended up with a mullet for most of high school.
My senior year my stepmother snuck me out to a different stylist and I got to get my hair "colored" for the first time. This stylist added honey blonde highlights and layers to my hair. I was in love with my hair for the first time ever.
I made peace with my straight hair and ended the bad cycle of perms when grunge music came into fashion. It was ok to be straight. My hair was healthier than it had ever been and was looking pretty darn good.
I then started making mistakes with home hair color. I was searching (and suppose still am) for that perfect color that perfect thing that will express how I feel my hair should look based on how I see it on the inside of my mind. Unfortunately my first foray into experimentation happened to be a "knee jerk" reaction to try and keep the attentions of my soon to be husband.
He had a not-so-secret fantasy for red headed women. I was a blonde. After two weeks of hearing and seeing him leer, pant and praise every red headed woman in the two weeks leading up to his birthday, I decided to give him a birthday surprise. I would become the red head of his dreams. I got a box of Ms. Clarol temporary home hair color went into the bathroom at my dad's house and walked out an hour later as an auburn haired beauty. "This " I smirked "should be good" . My father cried for the second time "what did you do?" then he frowned at me. "It's temporary Daddy." I said . Yeah, temporary color my eye .. what was supposed to wash out in two weeks was being cut and colored out by my stylist 9 weeks later.
I hadn't learned my lesson yet. I decided that since coloring my long hair was so expensive I would do it at home. I dropped down to just hair cuts at the local cosmetology school. Poor college students can't afford to go to fancy stylists. I let the color go back to its natural ash blonde.
After I got married I started using different shades of blonde home hair color to try to give myself natural looking highlights. We were poor and I was trying to save money. I ended up with tri-colored hair ash blonde roots, perfectly colored middle section hair and dead straw like ends that killed the bottom six inches of my hair. I cried when my husband remarked that I had given my self a skunk stripe. I slunk back to my stylist friend who was now supervising and teaching at the cosmetology school. She scolded me and smacked my hand "Promise me you will never EVER touch home hair color again!" I ducked my head and promised. To this day I don't even flirt with the idea of home color. She fixed the top part of my hair. The last six inches of hair had to come off. She cut it into a shoulder length bob. My husband, who loved my long hair, was less than pleased.
However I was pleased I noticed it had more bounce, tangled less and was easier to take care of. I've always been a bit of a tomboy and hated having to spend a lot of time styling my hair. I kept it shoulder length and pondered going shorter.
My husband and my father had resigned themselves at this point that I was never going to have long hair flowing down to the middle of my back again.
My dad got over it . My husband didn't.
As my marriage deteriorated over the next 13 years. I started cutting my hair shorter.
Six years into the marriage he said he felt trapped. I got angry and Snip ! the hair shrank to chin length and stayed there. Years seven and eight I experimented with color different hues of blonde and red. He was still unhappy with me. I threw everything I had into not failing at marriage. Years 9-12 it was color, cut (all chin length) asymmetrical, bob, poofy, same length. I was finding my own way externally and internally. Realizing that life is too short to be miserable. I got divorced and proceeded to shave the back all the way up leaving the sides chin length. New life =new hairdo for the new me.
My current length of hair was decided on by a casual post-divorce conversation with my buddy S. whom I met at OTC and his best friend A. Earlier that day I had been helping him move stuff out of his parents house and he had shown me a pic of himself in high school where he had long hair. I say long hair because currently he practically shaves his head. I had exclaimed that it really didn't look like "him" to me and that I preferred him with his current hair style as it was "just him" that "it suited his personality". Later that day I had shared with him that I was considering going back to my long hair. "Hmm" he had said looking me over "I don't know if I can picture you that way. " "I can fish out some pics of me with long hair so you can give me your opinion." and so I dipped into my old picture stash and produced a couple of pics where I had my long hair styled relatively well. Carefully he looked them over and then showed them to A. who smirked a bit but didn't say anything. S. paused and then said. "Like you said to me earlier. I just don't think it looks like "you" . The short hair looks good on you." Pushing him for a definite yes or no grow it out or not answer "I said but do you like me with long hair?" With almost Herculean effort he slowly smiled and said. " I like you with short hair." A. who was standing behind him smiled and nodded his head in agreement and then said " It's your hair just decide."
So I started thinking about what "suited me" for so long I had to squelch my inner voice that I really decided to think over why I was so ready to hop back to something that caused me so much grief. I decided that if I ever really want long hair I can go buy a wig. Short hair fits me and my personality. It's quick to style, looks good on me, works with the natural way my hair lays and all in all makes me happy. Now if I could just get that color combination down ...but where would be the fun in that ?
First of all every stylist I have (after starting to wrestle with my mane) always says "wow your hair is different. It's not doing anything like how we learned in cosmetology school." "Yep I say that is why I am turning this over to a pro because I can't do a damn thing with it."
My hair is fine like silk, but there's a lot of it. I have three different cowlicks in my hair that make it naturally want to look like someone took their hands and gave me a really bad noogie. It is also completely straight. My natural color is an unimpressive ash blonde color with a slightly green tint (my grandma used to joke it's the Irish blood in my mom's side of the family while she cackled that it looked the color of dirty dishwater). I bemoan the fact that the red undertones didn't come out more.
When I was little my parents insisted my hair be long. Even though I would plead to cut it because every time I moved it seemed to snarl itself in knots that would cause little tears to come out of my eyes while my paternal grandmother raked a comb through my hair. Yep I was a tender head and she was determined that if she just kept yanking eventually it would go away. All it did was overload the nerve endings in my head and cause me to have temporary numbness from the pain.
The efforts to control my long hair were laughable. My mom quickly gave up on it. My Dad's mom picked up the battle after she had retreated from the field saying I needed to look like "a little lady".
Elastic ponytail holders would slip right out after a few minutes of horseplay in the yard. My grandmother's solution was to pull my hair back so tight into the holder that the corners of my eyes were permanently relocated back by my earlobes. In non-politically correct terms we used to say this "made us look Chinese". This would allow the ponytail to last a whole 15 to 10 minutes before flyaway tendrils of hair would burst free of their bonds and swirl in the breeze around my head like Medusa's coils. Ragamuffin was a term thrown around very often as she would chase me around the yard in an effort to re-do the original torture.
Her second attempt was what she deemed "puppy ears" . This was double the torture as my hair was parted down the middle into two sections causing each eye corner to sit at a slightly different angle. After all it was important for the hair to stay in the holder not for me to look normal. None of my friends had to wear puppy ears. The effect was cute and gave Mary Shockley handholds with which to pull my hair in Kindergarten class. Once again my hair always found a way to escape.
A couple years later, my mother in a fit of revenge against my father( whom she had divorced two years earlier) cut my hair into a very stylish "Mary Lou Retton /Dorothy Hamill bob in my 2nd grade year. I think that was one of the first times I ever saw my father cry, he loved my long hair. Looking back on the pic I think it actually made my hair look better.
Of course it was grown back out, after all,little girls have long pretty hair so that they aren't confused with little boys. That was when my paternal grandmother (whom I was living with full time by now) staged her third attempt at making my hair behave. Shirley Temple Curls. She decided to do this on school picture day and despite my best efforts at undoing her efforts. The horror was captured for posterity.
Junior High marked my attempts to become more of an individual herd member. I wanted to fit in after all. So I decided I needed wispy bangs. The hairstylist my grandmother took me to at this time was the same one that did her and all the old ladies hair in the small town of Ava Mo. She was the queen of the blue hair mushroom do. When I said wispy bangs and showed her the picture of Cindy Lauper she responded by cutting my bangs in the same Bettie Page straight across manner she always had. My grandmother refused to even allow me to put layers in my hair. I was a smart kid and I hatched my own plot to get what I wanted.
In my first fit of rebellion I got out the pinking shears and attempted to give myself wispy bangs. The horrifying result was again captured for posterity in my Jr. High school picture. After that my stylist decided that perhaps she should study up on the latest styles if only to prevent people from thinking that she had murdered my hair.
That was when I decided that my "straight as a string" hair needed some curl to make it "do something". It was the 80's I wanted hair that stood up and out not flopped down. Thus began my love hate affair with permanent waves. I took a picture in of Madonna and pointed out her wavy hair and asked if my stylist could do that. Sure she said we can give you curls. I ended up with a traditional Hailey Mills in the movie parent trap perm a do. I wanted to crawl into a hole as I slunk onto the school bus that next Monday.
On the next try the new stylist in the salon took a crack at my hair. She got the spiral stacking down but she over processed me and I ended up looking like Roseanne Rosannadanna. I will never forget the hour and a half she spend with the thinning shears trying to get my hair to calm down.
This cycle of "good perm bad perm" continued off and on throughout my high school years. I kept my hair long even though I hated it because my father begged me not to cut my hair. I also was not allowed to cut it any shorter than shoulder length and being as my grandparents controlled my access to the stylist. I ended up with a mullet for most of high school.
My senior year my stepmother snuck me out to a different stylist and I got to get my hair "colored" for the first time. This stylist added honey blonde highlights and layers to my hair. I was in love with my hair for the first time ever.
I made peace with my straight hair and ended the bad cycle of perms when grunge music came into fashion. It was ok to be straight. My hair was healthier than it had ever been and was looking pretty darn good.
I then started making mistakes with home hair color. I was searching (and suppose still am) for that perfect color that perfect thing that will express how I feel my hair should look based on how I see it on the inside of my mind. Unfortunately my first foray into experimentation happened to be a "knee jerk" reaction to try and keep the attentions of my soon to be husband.
He had a not-so-secret fantasy for red headed women. I was a blonde. After two weeks of hearing and seeing him leer, pant and praise every red headed woman in the two weeks leading up to his birthday, I decided to give him a birthday surprise. I would become the red head of his dreams. I got a box of Ms. Clarol temporary home hair color went into the bathroom at my dad's house and walked out an hour later as an auburn haired beauty. "This " I smirked "should be good" . My father cried for the second time "what did you do?" then he frowned at me. "It's temporary Daddy." I said . Yeah, temporary color my eye .. what was supposed to wash out in two weeks was being cut and colored out by my stylist 9 weeks later.
I hadn't learned my lesson yet. I decided that since coloring my long hair was so expensive I would do it at home. I dropped down to just hair cuts at the local cosmetology school. Poor college students can't afford to go to fancy stylists. I let the color go back to its natural ash blonde.
After I got married I started using different shades of blonde home hair color to try to give myself natural looking highlights. We were poor and I was trying to save money. I ended up with tri-colored hair ash blonde roots, perfectly colored middle section hair and dead straw like ends that killed the bottom six inches of my hair. I cried when my husband remarked that I had given my self a skunk stripe. I slunk back to my stylist friend who was now supervising and teaching at the cosmetology school. She scolded me and smacked my hand "Promise me you will never EVER touch home hair color again!" I ducked my head and promised. To this day I don't even flirt with the idea of home color. She fixed the top part of my hair. The last six inches of hair had to come off. She cut it into a shoulder length bob. My husband, who loved my long hair, was less than pleased.
However I was pleased I noticed it had more bounce, tangled less and was easier to take care of. I've always been a bit of a tomboy and hated having to spend a lot of time styling my hair. I kept it shoulder length and pondered going shorter.
My husband and my father had resigned themselves at this point that I was never going to have long hair flowing down to the middle of my back again.
My dad got over it . My husband didn't.
As my marriage deteriorated over the next 13 years. I started cutting my hair shorter.
Six years into the marriage he said he felt trapped. I got angry and Snip ! the hair shrank to chin length and stayed there. Years seven and eight I experimented with color different hues of blonde and red. He was still unhappy with me. I threw everything I had into not failing at marriage. Years 9-12 it was color, cut (all chin length) asymmetrical, bob, poofy, same length. I was finding my own way externally and internally. Realizing that life is too short to be miserable. I got divorced and proceeded to shave the back all the way up leaving the sides chin length. New life =new hairdo for the new me.
My current length of hair was decided on by a casual post-divorce conversation with my buddy S. whom I met at OTC and his best friend A. Earlier that day I had been helping him move stuff out of his parents house and he had shown me a pic of himself in high school where he had long hair. I say long hair because currently he practically shaves his head. I had exclaimed that it really didn't look like "him" to me and that I preferred him with his current hair style as it was "just him" that "it suited his personality". Later that day I had shared with him that I was considering going back to my long hair. "Hmm" he had said looking me over "I don't know if I can picture you that way. " "I can fish out some pics of me with long hair so you can give me your opinion." and so I dipped into my old picture stash and produced a couple of pics where I had my long hair styled relatively well. Carefully he looked them over and then showed them to A. who smirked a bit but didn't say anything. S. paused and then said. "Like you said to me earlier. I just don't think it looks like "you" . The short hair looks good on you." Pushing him for a definite yes or no grow it out or not answer "I said but do you like me with long hair?" With almost Herculean effort he slowly smiled and said. " I like you with short hair." A. who was standing behind him smiled and nodded his head in agreement and then said " It's your hair just decide."
So I started thinking about what "suited me" for so long I had to squelch my inner voice that I really decided to think over why I was so ready to hop back to something that caused me so much grief. I decided that if I ever really want long hair I can go buy a wig. Short hair fits me and my personality. It's quick to style, looks good on me, works with the natural way my hair lays and all in all makes me happy. Now if I could just get that color combination down ...but where would be the fun in that ?
No comments:
Post a Comment