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In fact, the more pictures I looked at, the more I realized that
nearly every woman my age has gone through the same phases of
hairstyles that I did. As a baby, you had those wispy little curls
of hair that your daughter had: those sweet little ringlets of hair
that you never wanted to cut.
However, at some point your brother got hold of a pair of
scissors and played barbershop with your hair. That's how you ended
up with the bangs you always despised.
From about fourth or fifth grade you decided not to put up with
those bangs any longer. They made you look childish. No matter that
you were, in fact, still a child. By the time those bangs grew out,
you wouldn't be a child any longer, you thought.
So middle school was a hair nightmare of barrettes, headbands,
scrunchies and styles that would hide how hideous you looked because
you were trying to grow out those bangs. You knew, though, that once
they grew out, your braces came off and you sprouted some breasts,
you'd look like a supermodel.
Except that, by that time, the styles would change again and you
were supposed to look like Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Tiegs -- not
Twiggy.
Well, heck. Now you have to cut your hair in layers and learn how
to use a curling iron. If you look closely, in your high school
yearbook, you are bound to see at least one girl who had to get her
picture taken with a curling iron burn on the side of her face.
Maybe it was you.
After they starting filling emergency rooms with embarrassing
curling iron incidents, celebrities, in a rare moment of solidarity,
decided to ditch the curling iron and embrace the curly perm. When
the curly perm grew out, the shag hairstyle was born.
The shag only lasted until the layers grew out in the back, and
what was left was the infamous hairstyle called the mullet. Short on
top, long in the back, no curls, no maintenance. The mullet tried to
incorporate every hairstyle to date and failed miserably. It really
only looked good on Billy Ray Cyrus. Of course, Billy Ray Cyrus
would have looked good bald. Who was looking at his hair, anyway?
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At some point, shortly after the mullet became popular, someone
-- some influential someone -- actually looked at themselves in a
mirror, from the side, and said, "Oh... no." And the mullet was
dead.
Here's where everything gets a little fuzzy. This is perhaps the
time when women of my age decided to find a hairstyle that looked
good on them individually. There was a lot of guesswork. A lot of
walking out of a hair salon having paid a good tip for a style that
you were sure you'd grow to adore, but when you arrived home, your
husband invariably looked at you as if a Muppet had emerged from
your scalp. It was every woman for herself.
You experimented with past styles. You let the hairdresser talk
you out of a body wave and turn your head into a Brillo pad in an
effort to show you that, with her expensive products, you can look
like you have a body wave without actually getting one.
You cut it short. You grow it long. You try a rainbow of
different shades of hair color. You gel it, spike it, tease it and
toss it.
Finally, you realize that it doesn't matter what you do with your
hair, you are never going to look like a supermodel because the rest
of your body is not cooperating.
Then you do what many older women have done: You tell the
hairdresser to cut it all off so you don't have to mess with it
anymore. To anyone who cares to question your decision, this will
make it abundantly clear that you are not trying to look like a
supermodel, you are merely being practical.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
Laura Snyder is a nationally syndicated columnist,
author and speaker. You can reach her at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more info. |
