A friend of mine was complaining the other day about hearing the news that her hair stylist was moving, and how worried she was about finding someone new to manage her head. I can totally relate. Having moved more than a few times in my life, finding a good stylist is always a source of anxiety for me. Luckily I haven't been in that boat for twelve years, and I can't even handle the thought of having to do it again, although I know the day will come at some point.
So why is hair such a big deal? It's only hair, right? I think most people obsess about their hair because it's the one thing we're given genetically that we can change easily if we don't love it. Changing your eye color means wearing contacts. Making your lips fuller requires collagen injections. Modifying your cheekbones, your nose or something more substantial means full blown cosmetic surgery. By contrast, hair is simple, and you can change it as often as you want with few harsh side effects and no long term commitment. With your hair, you're in control -- at least relatively speaking.
I've been battling for control of my hair my entire life, and it's not a one person job. It takes incredible amounts of time, numerous hair products, and a large chunk of my discretionary income. Patience and stamina are also paramount. My current hair dresser jokes that doing a blow-out for me is her best aerobic workout, since it takes close to an hour. She should probably be sainted for dealing with my head all these years.
You see, my hair has a mind of it's own. I've got a ton of it, and it's naturally curly, which equals unruly most of the time. Always has been, always will be.
Take second grade, for instance.
My mother spent all morning wetting my hair down and spraying it into place so it would look nice for my school picture. During my walk to school on a windy day, it took flight and went it's curly way. If I remember correctly, she cried when the photo proofs arrived.
Then there were my early teenage years.
As if simply BEING a teenager isn't awkward enough, I had to do it when the Mullet was in style. I looked back through my high school yearbook the other day, and half the girls in my class had some version of this hair cut. The only reason I'm smiling in this picture is because I had just gotten my braces off.
By my senior year of high school, the Mullet was gone.
That's about the only good thing I have to say about this look. If it wasn't for the pearls, I'm pretty sure I could be mistaken for a really cute boy.
For most of my college years, my hair looked like this.
Kind of a longer, softer version of the high school cut -- short on the sides so my hair kept out of my face, but long in the back where it mattered. My hair product of choice in those days was Aussie Sprunch spray. Ah, that magical purple bottle! It was sticky as hell, but my hair didn't move.
Then I graduated from college and moved out on my own. My first major move away from college took me to Virginia Beach, Virginia -- home of sun, fun and cute Navy guys. I lived four blocks from the ocean and my apartment complex had an Olympic size pool, two perfect venues to change up my look and try out a fine little product called
Sun-In!
The look I was going for was sun-streaked highlights. The look I got was orange hair. I thought I was a babe, and the Navy guys didn't seem to care, so I didn't care either. Until I went to my first legitimate hair dresser and she explained how much that crap was damaging my hair. She said if I wanted to lighten my hair, foils were the way to go. Despite my concerns about the expense of going with "real" hair color, my vanity got the best of me and I started going blonde. In the process, I experienced a religious hair experience in the form of my first blow-out.
The girl who had never known anything but curls finally went straight! That is, at least for a few days until I had to wash my hair. I had dreamed and wished for straight hair my whole life, and now I knew I could have it whenever I wanted! Praise be to the God that invented the blow dryer an flat iron!
I kept variations on the same basic color and style for years, until I moved to California. In the process, more and more foils got added to the mix until I was finally a full blown, all over BLONDE!
Then one day, I decided I was tired of my bangs and decided to grow them out. I don't think I've ever been more frustrated with my hair in my life. It's always resisted anything that smacked of "training," so convincing it to lay the right way took every bit of patience I had. And by the time the bangs and finally grown out, my hair was damaged from too many years of 40-volume peroxide stripping the color out to make it blonde.
So we chopped it shorter and did kind of a bob thing.
At the time I liked it. Looking back at this picture, I don't know what I was thinking. The color, the length, it just all seemed wrong. Being a blonde was fun for a while, but I started looking washed out, and no matter what we did, the damage just didn't go away in a few spots.
So I decided my days as a blonde were done, and I've been much happier since.
This is redder than my natural color, it's the longest it's ever been in my life, and I feel the most like "me" that I ever have in my life. It's taken a long time to get here, and the battles have been many, but I feel like I've finally won the war with my hair.
Then again, maybe we've just reached a truce.
