Last night, PhDork’s FB status was a tribute to the musical “Hair”: PhDork wants it long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty, oily, greasy, fleecy, shining, gleaming, streaming…etc. etc!!” Funnily, it coincided with a panicky phone call from a friend desperately Googling “HOW TO REMOVE HENNA” and sobbing “It’s purple, Becky!”
Oh hair. You are so politically, socially, religiously, culturally, aesthetically charged. Cover or not cover? Cut or not cut? Curl or no curls?
In elementary school, I had an unfortunate bowl cut. In high school, what I thought were tres chic curls thanks to MamaSharper’s skillz with Ogilvie home perm. In college, my roommate ran a braiding parlor out of our living room, which paid her rent and led to little tumbling tumbleweeds of fake hair under the couch and in the corners.
As an adult, living on a shoe-string budget in New York, I spent years with my hair in a short, straight bob because it was cheap and convenient. Then I was with a man who loooooved long hair; he kept nagging me to grow it out, telling me it would look more “feminine.” This irritated the crap out of me, and I kept cutting it short. I’m no man’s Barbie.
Over the past two years, though, I’ve been growing my hair. It’s now past my shoulders and headed down my back, which is pleasingly warm in the winter, irritatingly hot’n'sweaty in the summer and extremely snarl-prone whenever it’s windy. Oh, and it really gets in the way during kissing and, yes, oral sex (although dudes don’t seem to mind). Does it make me feel more feminine? No, but it’s certainly perceived that way. I get complimented more now than ever; it’s long, it’s blonde, it’s beauty culture- and Patriarchy-approved!
Share the history of your hair, sisters. Is it fraught? Is there a “message” to your style? Does it reflect who you are, or is it just plain old hair?
Wow. Well, I’m a ginger. And my hair is long and curly so I get a LOT of comments on my hair – from little old ladies who just looove red hair to men who like to make dirty comments about the carpet matching the drapes. Many men have fetishes for redheads so I have to weed those out too since I’ve been dating for oh…17 years now. I remember I was walking down an aisle in Home Depot once and this older gentleman exclaimed out loud “LOOK A REDHEAD!” Um, excuse me? I was so pissed. Did I scream out “LOOK A DOUCHEBAG!”? No, I glared at him and left.
So yeah, my hair causes me a lot of consternation. I hated it as a child but now I have come to love it and the way it makes me stand out.
Oh, theorchidthief, you should have shouted “LOOK A DOUCHEBAG!” That would have been awesome
I’ve always admired redheads, and been slightly jealous (I’m a dark brunette). But, y’know, the grass is always greener . . .
Mine is currently a very short faux-hawk. I tend to cut it myself (poor Uni student here), and over the past few years I’ve kept it very short — about a year ago, I shaved it. I’m probably going to do it again this summer, after my best friend’s wedding. I’m the maid of honour, and she (having somewhat more traditional views on the subject) has requested me to have “girl hair” for the wedding. So I’m sure to do something crazy with it immediately afterward.
Lately, my hair has been a bit of a loaded subject . . . I’m currently exploring my sexuality/gender identity, and I’m finding myself much more comfortable with very masculine cuts lately. Getting called “sir” occasionally, rather than “ma’am” actually makes me smile. I’m attempting to deconstruct the reasons for this . . .
(PS, sorry for the novel)
@orchidthief: I wish I had red hair, I think it’s so pretty.
I also had perms in middle school. I have usually had long hair, partly because my hair grows like a weed and I don’t have the patience/desire to spend for frequent trims.
In 8th grade I chopped my hair to my ears and by Junior year my hair was down to my hips. I went to an all-girls high school with a uniform and I would spend the most time every morning on my hair doing it in elaborate braided updo’s. I was SUPER into it at that point. In college I started going shorter bit by bit.
It usually hovers around an inch or so past my shoulders. Lately it was getting really long again and after thanksgiving I cut it to my shoulders. So it’s pretty short for me right now.
Considering I am all over any hair post on Jezebel describing my years of struggle with my hair, this was made for me.
My hair’s always been thick. It was auburn and curly when I was a baby – baby pictures looked like Little Orphan Annie. It straightened out as it got longer, and was thick and stick straight for all of elementary school, until I cut it off to my shoulders, when it began to wave.
Then I cut it into a pixie, like my mom’s, at the age of 13, which looked fabulous for two weeks, and then like a mushroom when it started to grow out. Nonetheless, thanks to my mother’s influence I kept it short for thirteen years, thinking that was the best way to control the curls. It was only when I was 26 and my hair stylist convinced me it would be easier to control if it was a little longer that I started to grow it out. It’s currently about shoulderblade-length and wildly curly. Almost everyone I meet loves it.
Except my mother.
I spend about 25% of my brainpower on my hair: v. thick, brown, wavy, graying, dyed burgundy, obsessively every 3 weeks,
and on my daughter’s hair: v. thick, brown, curly, dyed midnight blue obsessively whenever I can
and on my son’s hair: v. thick, dirty blonde, straight, almost never combed
I will read every comment, obsessively
I was born with a parting on the right-hand side (thanks dad). A friend seeing a baby photo of me for the first time, was surprised by my blonde hair. It’s been dark brown since I was about 4.
It’s always been oily but it’s getting drier as I get older. I claim the oil as part of my Jewish identity, although I get it from my non-Jewish parent (thanks dad). My mum loves my hair and I still let her brush it and stroke it, which I don’t let anyone else do.
I had short (sometimes extremely short) hair throughout my childhood and most of my teens and early 20s and didn’t mind being mistaken for a boy occasionally. Short hair repels many kinds of arsehole-men, in my experience.
Sun-In actually works quite well for me – although I haven’t used it since my hair was an inch long.
I had some damn funny styles when I first moved to London and was a little fashion monkey, getting it cut every 5 weeks.
I don’t suit bobs. This is one of the very, very few things I feel sad about regarding my appearance. I have a bob personality, but not a bob jaw-line.
My hair is long right now, half-way down my back. Sometimes I notice men ogling it in the street, although not having had long hair while I was developing, means I overwhelmingly find this silly.
I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for 3 years now. She cuts it so I only need go every 3 months, accepts that I have a limited interest in playing with it everyday and pays me wonderful compliments about it.
My mother thinks a diet rich in eggs and dark green vegetables is the way to healthy hair. I really like spinach omelettes, so I believe this completely.
I had extremely long thin blonde hair most of my young life. I cut it once to chin length and hated it so much that I was terrified to ever cut it above my shoulders for years. I kept it all one length reaching halfway down my back through most of high school and later married my high school sweetheart, who half-jokingly told me that if I ever cut it, the sex would stop.
I called his bluff after four years of marriage, and we both agreed that my new cut was far more attractive. I had gone to a salon for the first time in my life, gotten it all-over highlighted and cut in layers with the longest layer just brushing the tops of my shoulders. Also, I added long, side-swept bangs.
After the divorce, I played with even shorter styles, and went pretty extreme this past summer. I love asymetrical cuts that amplify my playful, flirty attitude. I have come to it late, but now I’m fascinated by my hair and the versatility of it. Styling products are my friends now, not some mystery other women have mastered!
When I was little my hair was straight. I got it permed in 5th grade and it’s been thick and curly ever since.
I doubt it was the Most Effective Perm In The World, though. My mom has curly hair and my dad’s hair is wavy so the change probably had something to do with puberty. It’s dirty blond in color with some blonder highlights. The curls change every so often. Sometimes it’s a lot of ringlets and then a year later it’s just wavy.
For the most part I like my hair a lot. What I dislike is that it’s prone to oiliness at the roots and dryness everywhere else.
@Jenny: My sister got engaged about 8 months after the first time I shaved my head. She insisted on 6 months of hair growth so I didn’t look like “a boy in a dress” in her pictures. I think I lasted 2 weeks after the wedding and then shaved it again. I loved it. Me and my dad would cut each other’s hair in the yard while drinking a few beers. It took my mom a little while to adjust to it… She was very upset for about a week.
I had hair down to my waist then chopped it to my chin and donated it. About 2 weeks after that, I cut it (by myself) on the bias and shaved all the underneath stuff. I think that lasted a week and a half til i buzzed it.
It’s a short pixie cut now. I miss the ease of just cutting it myself, never running out of shampoo and not having to think about products even though I love my current cut.
@SarahMC: OMG! That totally happened to me, I got a perm in middle school and then my hair became curly for the next like, 8-10 years. It was always wavy but it was super curly during my teen years and like you say, I doubt it was the most effective perm ever. When I reached my 20s it gradually subsided back into waves.
I have a lot of very fine, longish, brown curly hair. Growing up I always wore it in a bob growing up (I’m not sure why, to be honest, because it usually looked triangular) but since college I’ve grown it out and even though it can be a pain to take care of during periods of extreme weather, I do love it. Sometimes I’ll take the thinning shears to it to not feel as bulky, but there is something special about having the big curls some days.
I have dark brown, very very straight hair. These days it’s chemically untouched, although I’m contemplating dyeing it dark auburn soon. I have been told that having straight hair is desirable, but it’s a constant thorn in my side to be honest. I can’t grow it out because it just goes limp and greasy looking. About once a year I try, it gets past my shoulders, and I give up and go back to the straight, below the chin bob. I also spend a ton of time applying various volumizing products and heated stylings tools trying to make it look like anything other than limp spaghetti.
What I don’t get is the reaction of dudes when you announce you are going to do something (anything) to your hair. No matter what kind of guy I’ve been with – Neanderthal or Feminist ally – they all uniformly freak out if I say “I am going to cut/dye/highlight/whatever my hair.”
The first time I announced to my current boyfriend that I was going to cut my hair (which was just touching my shoulders) he said “Oh nooooo I like your hair!”. I had to explain that I wasn’t, like, cutting it ALL off. Just taking off an inch or so to even things up. I got the haircut, and he then saw it was not some kind of scary shearing. One day I remarked that I might get highlights again, and he again went “Noooooo I like your hair! And I don’t like blondes – don’t dye it!”. I told him it would still be brown, just with some subtle undertones.
For some reason, although dudes themselves often get haircuts as often as every couple of weeks, when I tell them that I am getting a haircut, they assume that I must being plotting a drastic change – not just getting a trim to maintain status quo.
The funny thing is that every time I do make a slight change to my hair, or get it trimmed up, boyfriend admits that he likes it. He just gets nervous every time anyway.
Mine is long, curly, brown, and big. My new hairdresser is all about making my hair as frizzy and big as possible, and so am I .
I actually find myself getting jealous at all the girls with bigger hair than me in Tel Aviv. It’s fabulous to be somewhere where you’re not seen as a freak for having huge-ass curly hair (and mine is pretty tame and wavy compared to a lot of people here).
Obviously, when I was growing up in Dallas, TX, I had a lot of hair mishaps–trying to straighten it, etc. But that’s all over now.
@May: As we say down South: “The higher the hair, the closer to God!” Bigger can definitely be better!
The Epic of the Hair. I started out as a honey-blonde, with along straight hair almost always down past my ass.
When I was 14 I cut it up to just above my shoulders and started perming it to get SOME sort of shape and wave to it. Think Madonna circa “Like a Virgin,” with bangs. Skater bangs. And also frosting it. After I cut it (my mom, sister and I all cut our hair at the same time) my dad didn’t speak to any of us for weeks.
Then I moved on to the HUGE ROCKER CHICK hair, and did that until my senior year of high school when I discovered that if I just pulled it back into a ponytail I could sleep for half an hour longer. Sloth won out over Vanity.
For years it was blonde and permed. Then after I got married I started dyeing it red/burgundy/auburn to stop the stupid blonde jokes, and quit perming it.
At one point it was past my ass again, and dark purple. Also, at one time, we accidentally dyed it black by using too dark a red and I looked awful. It took months to grow out, too.
About 8 years ago, I cut it all off to donate, and went with an A-line bob, long enough to brush my collarbones in front, and shaved in a #2 cut in back. And, I kept it red/auburn with henna.
Right now it’s blonde, blonde, blonde, with a cut like Madonna’s in the Cherish video. I did not realize that until I stepped out of the shower the other day. Why is my hair evolution so easy to describe in terms of Madonna’s career. Next month I’m going platinum with violet streaks, and this may make me the biggest geek here, but I’m growing out my bangs so I can have the hairstyle of Ivy from the Soul Calibur videogames.
What does my hair say about me, though? Too many free evenings with a box of some random hair product?
I have very thick, very dark hair that grows inhumanly fast. When I was little, it was jet black, but it’s had increasing red and brown highlights since I turned ten or so.
Since it grows superfast, I’ve been growing it out for two or so years then cutting off about 18 inches and donating it to Locks of Love for ten years now.
My husband is the first guy I’ve dated who’s not in love with my hair (and I admit, I hit the hair-genes jackpot). It’s nice that he doesn’t make a fuss when I cut it (I think he actually prefers it short and not in his mouth in bed), but it also weirds me out a little. I’m so used to guys being attracted to my hair, it’s strange not to get constant compliments.
My only hair concern is color. My mother was over half gray at 25, and completely white by 35. At 31, I’m clearly not going to gray as fast as her, but I’m grayer than most women my age. My sister (who’s 40) has been coloring for ten years now, but I’ve never permed or colored my hair, and I don’t want to start. Again, it’s not a bad thing, just weird for me. My identity is tied up in my hair more than I want to acknowledge, so the idea of it changing color is disquieting.
I have long pin straight dark, dark, almost black hair with subtle auburn highlights. I get it colored now, because at the ripe old age of 27, I have been graying for 2 years, but I dye it the same color I have.
In my teens I desperately wanted dark auburn hair and colored it all the time with the wash out dyes. I also periodically would chop it to my chin, or even shorter, then grow out. In college, I added blond highlights, then went progressively blonder, which only looked good in the summer. I moved to New England, and went back my dark roots, and after years of not letting it go past my shoulders, have now grown it down to the middle of my back.
All that being said, I now LOVE my hair. I play with all sorts of products and tools, and love that I can either stick a headband in and go, or part to the side and curl the ends. The only way I can do real curls and have my hair hold it though, is in the winter, when the temperature is below 40, and the humidity non existent. Otherwise getting a slight curl under or out is all I can hope for.
Basically, I love my hair, it’s my favorite part of me. The end.
I have a boring chin length bob. In my dreams it is red with black streaks. However, I can’t seem to do it. I guess I am too tied to societal acceptance, and that makes me sad. I’ve had my hair every stage of permed / long / short over the years. I guess crazy color is the last frontier for me.
My dad was so obsessive about my mom’s hair, he didn’t speak to her, literally, for 2 weeks once when she cut bangs into her halfway down her back all one length hair. So anytime a man comments on what a woman should do with her hair it makes me grind my teeth almost to cracking.
GeekGirlsRule: “Too many free evenings with a box of some random hair product?”
Those were the best evenings, though, in college with friends! The anticipation of how it would turn out….not bothering to clean the color off the dorm shower…(I feel bad about that now). Other people’s hair was the center of attention more than mine was, but I did go all Audrey Hepburn and get a short pixie cut right before coming home from a semester in Europe (Italy, not France). I’ve had a layered bob for years now, and I toy with going short again. But my hair short requires more work than this length does, and Sloth always wins.
I’m in the Army, so it’s fortunate that my preferred haircut (chin-length with layers) is approved of by regulation.
In various efforts at conformity and male-pleasing, I’ve periodically grown it out. This, I have learned, is pointless, because I have a round face and look *terrible* with long hair.
(As an aside, I have to admit that I’m somewhat surprised at how white-centric this thread is.)
I was born with lots of black hair, which I shed and replaced with wispy auburn curls, which got lighter and lighter and straighter and straighter until I looked like a 5 year old Jan Brady.
Had the Dorothy Hamill wedge in grade school, had the bad perms and the waterfall bangs in jr. high, and used rollers (sponge or hot) nearly every day in high school, because I have very fine, pin-straight, silky-floppy hair which doesn’t want to do anything but lie there. Not. Cute.
I’ve colored it black, green, magenta, blonde, and red, and its now a sorta warm medium brown, maybe kinda coppery in the summer.
I wish I had the huevos to chop it, like Jenny or ahhhh-me, but I don’t think I’d look like a boy, I’d just look bad. (And the Dude wouldn’t like it, although he’d never say anything.) I’ve finally cut bangs again, after nearly 15 years, because I feel like it helps hide my fivehead.
I long for big soft waves and bouncy curls. I want pre-Raphaelite hair.
My mother and grandmother always say I have “good Jewish hair.” I guess meaning that it’s very, very thick. It’s always been blonde, but God knows I have tried to change that. It’s been purple, brown, black, red, auburn, and even blue streaks to celebrate the Yankees. (I thought it would look like pinstripes).
I got a pixie cut when I was 12. Unfortunately, my hair is too thick for that. I shaved it off when I was 18, and loved it. I’m now growing it very long (maybe to my waist, like I had when I was 16).
One thing that’s surprising is that my pregnancy thinned it a bit. My mom said the same thing happened to her. Does anyone else have that experience? Strange. There’s no real message to my hair, per se. There was when I shaved it, and I’ve toyed with doing it again. But usually I just run a brush through it and don’t give much of a shit beyond occasionally changing the color.
I’ve always been pretty happy with my hair. Straight, brown, fairly silky. I did a lot of coloring in the past few years: blue, purple, red, hot pink. I think my partner misses that.
Now it’s quite short. Like people could mistake me for a man from the back short. But I really love it. It feels oddly liberating to think about the things that make me feminine/masculine in appearance outside of my hair.
@ShinyObjects That’s what led to the blonde. I had a free evening, I had a box of bleach… And a hairdresser who scolded me roundly for doing it myself while she put toner on it several days later.
I’m really looking forward to the platinum with violet streaks. We’re doing extensions for the violet as they are less likely to run and bleed than dyed streaks would be.
My hair is thick, and I have enough of it for about 4 average humans. People are constantly grabbing sections of my hair and saying, “I mean, come on! This is how much hair I have total!!” So, I figured I’d do good and grow it out to donate it. It’s currently halfway down my back, and I’m thinking I’ll be ready to make the big cut in March. (The best way to tame my hair is to have it long, so I have to grow it out long enough that it’s still long after the to-be-donated section is cut.)
[Also: hi! I'm new.
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I was one of those bald kids well into early childhood, and then, when I finally did grow some wispy hair, it stayed that way, forever. People often touch my hair and exclaim that it feels like child’s hair. It’s very very fine and very very soft. It has a light wave to it I describe as “wrinkly” as it’s not wavy but not straight. I’m forever in search of a product to put on it and air dry for nice, non-crunchy waves. Color wise, I was born blonde and am now a light brown with a tendency toward natural coppery highlights. I can never decide if I want to go really short or grow it out, and am currently on a growing it out phase.
My biggest hair mishap was attempting to give myself highlights the summer before my senior year. They came out orange, and my hairdresser had to do a lot of stripping to get me to some sort of natural-ish looking blonde. This kickstarted years of dying it darker to cover the blonde until it finally grew out and could all be cut off. Most of the time, no matter what color I chose, my hair took on a reddish cast. That is except for the time I went way too dark and ended up in what my husband refers to as The Elvira Period. These days I think about dying my hair a chocolatey brown, but keep deciding I like my natural highlights.
The most recent hair mishap was convincing my husband, who cuts his own hair with clippers, that he could trim my hair with scissors. Just a few snips and it was a disaster. I still have a few raggedy pieces that don’t fit in with my cleaned-up-by-a-pro style.
I know from whence BeckySharper speaks. I’m a born Southerner, and I have been fighting with the “high hair” paradigm for my entire life. Volume is the only thing that’s EVER in style here in Louisiana. The big thing right now? Bumpits.
I have very fine, straight lightish brown hair that tends on the oily side, and I spent most of my childhood and young adulthood fighting it because it seemed so flat. So unglamorous. In college I finally recognized I couldn’t let it get longer than my shoulders and settled on that. When I moved to California in my early twenties, though, I discovered my love for the pixie cut. After finding a good hairdresser who didn’t operate under the “bigger is better” mold, I learned that my super-fine locks can do anything short.
Then, in my late twenties, I returned to the South and two things happened:
(1) I moved to a VERY SMALL town where literally NO local hairdresser would cut a pixie. They objected that it was “just too short” and “not flattering on anybody, honey.”
(2) I gained a boyfriend who, like the boys so many of you mentioned, LOVES long hair. He insisted on seeing mine long.
I managed to get the hair grown to my chin before freaking out and having a friend cut it back to its pixie length one night in her kitchen. The boyfriend referred to this as a “betrayal”. I broke up with him not long after and moved out of the small town back to a place with real hairdressers.
I have blond hair that is usually quite straight, except when it goes through very rare but spectacular phases of ringlet curls for a week or a month. I have no idea why — some perfect storm of humidity, products, water type (only happens with soft water, which I usually don’t have), and genes, I guess.
I like short hair on me — I think it’s more fun and interesting and flattering for my face/head shape. But when I grow it out, I get more compliments, doors held open, male attention, general approval, etc. Much as I’m bothered by taking advantage of what is clearly unearned privilege… what can I say, I like the attention.
@Queen_George: I think bumpits make women look like cone-heads. I can understand adding a switch of hair to thicken up a hairstyle–hello, Sarah Palin!–but bumpits look anatomically incorrect.
I’m also a ginger. I have gotten the same questions about the carpet matching the drapes, lame jokes about my temper, and of course the people who just love it.
These days I dye it dark burgundy. I love the gothy colour, since it matches my personal style, and the way it makes my skin look (very pretty and porcelain-white).
It’s waist-length, since I think long hair is awesome. Would be ass-length if I hadn’t had to give it a trim this summer. Also, I’m a metalhead, and you just can’t headbang without looong hair.
It’s naturally curly. I usually wear it loose and curly, but I will occasionally straighten it.
I chopped it off to chin length when I graduated and since then I’ve decided never to wear it short again. I love my hair. My curls and frizz and tangles used to frustrate me but it’s tamed as I’ve grown older and I have learned to love it.
I have ridiculously thick wavy hair that is the very definition of mouse brown. Or it would be, except I’ve been dying it (mostly red) since the 8th grade. I had it long until middle school, and there were many mornings that would literally end in me crying in pain from my mother’s attempts to detangle it.
I cut it supershort in middleschool and had it in varying versions of short until the past year or so. I’ve been so busy/poor because of school I just let it go, and it’s now several inches past my shoulders. I recently dyed it dark brown, after having it red for mm, 8 years or so, and I LOVE it. It’s the most I’ve loved my hair since the first time I dyed&cut it.
Also? My boyfriend has the softest hair I have ever touched. He never puts products in it, and it’s nice and thick and so much fun to pet.
My god, the amount of time and money I’ve spent on my hair. I’ve even shed a few tears.
Naturally, I have mousy-brown, thick hair that is frizzy when there is even a touch of humidity in the air. If you look at an individual strand of my hair, it’s a long series of very small kinks. I’ve used every product under sun to try to get soft, flowing locks. The only things that work are professional blow-outs, or a bone-dry climate. Absent either of these, my hair just looks messy and unkempt no matter how much time I spend on it.
I started dying my hair when I was 12. It’s rarely been natural since. I’ve been dark blond (with a lovely hay-like texture from all the chemicals), reddish-blond, all variations of brown, and many shades of Oooops, how the hell did that happen!? When I started making money in my life, I found a really good salon and paid out the ass religiously every 8 weeks to have a professional color my hair. To help correct all the damage, she brought my color back to a warm brunette. Now that I am no longer making that kind of money, I color it at home in an dark auburn shade, but I’m pretty lazy about it. It’s usually when I see too much grey that I bust out the hair dye (I hate that it bothers me, but it does.)
I also had home perms in junior high, and a few salon spiral perms. I had those Hot Sticks thingies that were supposed to give you spirals, and many makes and models of curling irons. I went through Depp Gel like crazy in the ’80s “waterfall bang” era. For the most part I’ve kept my hair long, but I did chop it to my chin once in college (prompting a male friend to stop speaking to me for a week), and then again after law school. I had bangs until after college when I grew them out. I’ve only cut them back in once, and have since let them grow out again.
These days, my hair is thinner (thanks to Plan B, which scarily caused my hair to fall out excessively for almost three months after I had to use it). To lower my expenses, I’ve let my hair grow long again (it’s just below my bra strap now). Since I don’t use dye with ammonia or peroxide, it stays pretty healthy, and I can get away with cuts maybe two times a year. Also, I live in a very dry climate , so it’s the best behaved hair I’ve ever had, no products necessary.
I’d heard of a Bumpit before, that is too funny! My stylist is always trying to give me that high-crown look and I’m always mashing it down in the parking lot on my way out.
@PhDork – I too had the Dorothy Hamill in grade school! In fact, I have a picture of my little sister and I both sporting the DH and wearing matching polyester jumpsuits. That was after the shag, but before the pixie. Aaaah, the 70s.
I think I posted on another thread here before that I’ve recently decided to stop coloring and let my silver flag fly. My grandmother was completely white by 19, and I’ve been graying since high school. My maiden hair was a sort of dark auburn and curly (my mom is a curly, carrot-orange, my dad, curly, black), but I pretty much didn’t see my natural color for decades.
I’m the sort that if I wear a given look for longer than a year, I start to get bored, so I’ve moved from mid-back to pixie and everything in between, and from “natural” looking browns and reds, to blonde and pink, and leopard spots. Once I finished grad school and had to at least pretend to be professional, it’s pretty much been some variation on a chin-length bob, with the exception of last year when I cut it all super short to facilitate the grow out. For awhile I had this kind of red-tailled hawk look with the gray/white/silver with reddish-brown tips.
It’s been a challenge at times adjusting to the fully silver look. But, I have a 2-year old daughter, so it was time to work through some shit and clarify my stance on a few issues. I’m sure my hair color makes me appear a little older than I am, at least from a distance or from behind. And, yes, I’ve been mistaken for my kids grandmother and my mother’s sister, which has illuminated some ageism I’ve been harboring. I’m 41, so I’m kinda on the cusp of facing middle age and all those cultural boogiemen, dyed or not. Some days I feel like wearing a t-shirt that says, “This is what 41 looks like, mother fuckers!” Other days, I come thisclose to dying it back to a more “youthful” color.
I’m not saying I’ll never color my hair again, after all I like switching up my look and having fun, but if I do it won’t be because I fear looking older. Fuck that noise.
Though I might reconsider if I have to interview for a job. Hating on Big P is fine, but I need to get paid.
One thing that’s surprising is that my pregnancy thinned it a bit. My mom said the same thing happened to her. Does anyone else have that experience?
My hair got thicker towards the end of my pregnancy and then fell out spectacularly in the three to four months after my daughter was born. The shower drain is still in recovery.
When I went to get my hair cut for the first time after I had my daughter, my hairdresser assured me that changes in hair during and after pregnancy are totally normal. Just one of those things.
@krismcn: I love the silver fox look. I have a close girlfriend who’s in her late 30s and finally stopped dying her hair so that it’s uniformly silver. I hear what you’re saying about it looking old from a distance, but up close, I don’t think it would make you look significantly older. Silver is beautiful and striking.
My dad has been completely silver since his late 30′s, so it’ll likely happen to me, too (I look frighteningly like him). I’m kind of looking forward to it, especially if I stick with short hair. I’ve always loved how short, punky silver hair looks.
@ s.o.a.l.g: my stepmom had the same experience with both of her pregnancies — and she keeps her hair in braids, so the hair loss appeared even more alarming when she had it re-braided. Her hair was coming out in handfuls.
It did grow back eventually, but I know my little siblings pulling on it all the time didn’t help
I’ve got very straight and fine blonde hair, which was more of a strawberry blonde when I was younger. Throughout my childhood, my mother was somehow convinced that I would look just horrible with long hair, so she’d never let me grow it out, though my sister always got complimented on her long hair. Meanwhile, with my short bowl (often literally cut around a bowl) cut, my tomboy nature, and my androgynous nickname at the time, I was often asked if I was a boy – which drove me nuts.
Then, to make matters worse, my family and hairdresser convinced me I needed perms to give my hair more body, so I had a series of crazy perms from ~4th grade through high school. Started out with the Annie look, which morphed into a crazy asymmetrical wedge by high school. Also, see above about my hair being thin and fine – the perms would totally fry my hair, making my Little Orphan Annie cut look more like a strawberry-blonde fro often as not.
So as soon as I got out of the house, the first thing I did was start growing my hair out, and unsurprisingly, I looked pretty darn good with long hair. I liked it, guys like it (yes, Becky, it does get in the way but no one seems to mind) – it just feels good to me. I’ve considered cutting it short several times, especially when working down in the tropical heat, but I just don’t want to go back there. Besides, for me longer hair is easier to take care of. I don’t really bother styling it except when I’m going out, whereas short styles require more work for me. So I’m sticking with shoulder-length or longer for now.
I have that odd hair that never decided what it was: wavy or straight, brown with redish streaks or redish with brown streaks. I’ve almost always had it long since I had a family centered on “girls need long hair”.
Being active duty we are not allowed to have our hair down or around the collars of our uniforms. If it’s long it’s up in a bun… No buts about it. We also can’t have hair decorations. Anything we use to pull it up must be the same color as your hair I.e. Brown hair clips, brown hair ties ect. We also can’t dye our hair in colors that aren’t our own naturally. So I can’t go get blond highlights.
Curiously enough I’ve been completely not recognized by coworkers outside of uniform because according to them: “you just look so different with your hair down.” I got one friend (also active duty) to be honest one day as to why it was so different. His honest response? “You don’t look remotely sexual at work. Your hair down just screams WOMAN and SEX.”
Which I guess is what the military wants.
Auburny-brown. Straight. Fine. Short.
The short part is the part that can feel troublesome. When I was a kid, my Mom insisted on short hair for me. She thought I wouldn’t properly take care of longer hair, thought I looked better with short hair, and loved little tomboys. It also made me look like my brother, which she thought was cute, too. For me, however, I thought, “If I’m a girl, and I have hair like a boy, and I look like my brother (as opposed to looking like my sister), then I must be the ugliest little girl in the world.” It didn’t help matters that my older sister always got to have her hair long. Long hair = pretty; short hair = ugly.
To this day, I can’t help feeling like I’m just not as feminine as all the other women with long hair. Yet I really do look better with it short. It’s a real catch-22 for me…
I’ve enjoyed reading about all your hair stories – the array of colours, and long and short of it…
When I was young I had very long straight blond hair, all the way to my bottom.. there wasn’t a particular reason for growing it, but my mum would look after and ensure it was brushed and braided and tied back.. because I was the eldest girl of a large family that includes 5 girls, I got to choose whether I wanted long or short hair. Because mum would do my hair it was like 5 minutes where I could have mum all to myself.. sometimes we would much around with my hair, she would tie it rags like she used to do when she was young, and I would sport ringlets until I would wash my hair..
My mum was the person that took me for my first perm (when I was 12 – what a mistake!), and then when I got it coloured (an unbelievably bright and fantastic shade of red). My hair 3 years later retained the curl, which I assumed was in part changing hormones, and the fact it was shorter with no weight to pull down the curl. It still maintains a slight wave, but more so from me wearing it in a ponytail.
I’ve shaved my hair so that it was 1/4 inch all the way around, had it long, and coloured it every possible colour (my personal favourite is a toss up between: the fire engine red of my first hair colour was and the black with dark red foils).
My hair has got darker since I’ve got older, so now it’s like a dirty blonde. I maintain my hair in sort of Posh (Victoria Beckham-esque the style before the current pixie-like cut she sports now) layered bob but longer and without the need for a hairdresser everyday.
I sometimes dream of growing my hair all the way to my bottom again.. but then I couldn’t handle the length of time it would take to do everyday, and my mum doesn’t live with me..
I’m very late, but I’ll join in anyway:
I got pretty lucky in the hair stakes – thick, brown, not prone to frizz, looks nice even when air-dried.
Unfortunately, this means I often take it for granted. I spent most of my childhood and teen years with it in ponytails or somehow held back from my face. I gradually reformed and got better about wearing it long after 17/18.
I never dyed it though, because both my parents went gray early and I want to get as much mileage out of this color as I can.
I recently went short – a pixie cut, except for on me it looks a bit like a graduated bob just because my hair is so thick – and am pretty happy with it. It forces me to put a little bit of effort (blow drying!) in, but not too much. I’m thinking of letting it get to about shoulder-length and putting in some layers, though – after about 6 months of short hair, I’m starting to appreciate all the things about long hair I never did before!
“I’m no man’s Barbie.”
So a couple nights ago, this boy I’ve kinda been seeing (who’s already exhibited a few red flags..) said I should get bangs, like those thing ones that go to your eyebrows. Now admittedly, I’ve been thinking about doing this for about a year, but when he started being all “You should get bangs! Go do it!” it made me grimace. Because of that? I think I’m going to keep my center-parted bang-less long straight brown hair for now.
At least he didn’t say it would look more “feminine” – eesh..
@Milo: In general, when dudes we date tell us how we should dress, style our hair, what makeup to wear, etc. it’s a red flag. Unless he’s genuinely interested in fashion or is a hairdresser or says it only in response to a query, like “should I get bangs?” I’d be wary. It can be a slippery slope, and guys who do it are often the controlling type.
In fairness to men, I feel the same way about women who are always nagging them to wear different clothes, shave, not shave, get their backs waxed, etc. That’s not cool, either.
I think it’s so interesting to see how many comments are on this thread and how long some of the comments have gotten! Look how important hair is to women – society/patriarchy puts so much pressure on women to have a certain type of hair and hairstyle and we have so many stories.
I really dislike doing anything other than washing and combing my hair, so I never have it long. (I look vaguely like an afghan hound when my hair is long.)
It used to be cute when I was five and my mother would braid it or give me nine ponytails because it was Number Nine day at school, but after I got older, she got annoyed at my whining when she brushed the tangles out, and my father warned me they’d cut it off if I whined again. I did, and voila… the hairdresser cut off my entire braid. My mother asked if she could donate it a few years back, and we did.
When I was in highschool, I used to have it cut pixie-style short, with one long lock on one side. I thought it was The Shit, until a girl threatened to get a teacher because she said I was a boy in the girlsroom. I could handle the ‘are you a boy or a girl’ question, but the idea of getting in trouble and having to explain myself to a teacher freaked the shit out of me.
These days, I just go to my hairdresser and say: I want it short and I want it to look good. I usually end up rocking some kind of bob, which looks very mature and sophisticated when styled by her, but just generally fun when I just wash and comb it.
Also this year, I have discovered the secret of Lush Soaps, and my hair has never been less greasy!
Oh dear, I feel like such a baby here…I’m still in college!
Anyway, I’ve actually thought about this quite a lot recently. Why? For the first eighteen years of my life, I had the Exact. Same. Haircut— dark brown, wavy and to my shoulders. And for a while I thought I’d be quite content to have it that way for the rest of my life. But then this past October I finally got the impulse to get a change, and so I went pretty short (not quite a pixie cut, but almost there) and had lighter-brown highlights put in.
The thing is, the last thing I want to do is get stuck in another rut again with my haircut. I think I’ll have it this way for another year (by the way, do I have the only boyfriend on the planet who prefers girls with short hair? Yes, he is straight.
) but I’ve been toying with the idea of growing it out. When I was a little kid I was always jealous of the girls who had long, straight hair since at that age my hair was curly, short and totally unfeasible past my chin, and since I’ve never had long hair before, I think it would be an interesting experiment. The Boyfriend was a little surprised when I first told him of this, but as much as he likes me in my current state (and I do too, since I think it makes me look like Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab circa 1994), he doesn’t care so much about my hair as what’s underneath it. 
And it won’t be any kind of acquiescence to the patriarchy, believe me—I used to worry that I’d lose my eccentricity if I grew out my hair, but I can always be the Kate Bush/Lene Lovich variety of kook.
Also late to the party here, but @jenny and @ahhhh-me: what is with the long hair and weddings thing?
I cut my hair into a short, pixie cut before my friend’s wedding (which I was the maid of honor in) and when it was my turn to have my hair “done” the day of the wedding, the hair dresser said “So you’re the one who cut her hair!” in this tsk tsk manner and went on to make me feel bad for making her job harder. Um, hello, I just made it easier for you, just pin the flower in and you’re done, no curling iron necessary!
(And for the record, it looked really cute in the pictures.)
@PetiteXL:
I have the same problem with my short hair. Even though I know it suits my face and body FAR better than the stringy stuff that I get when I try to grow it out, I still can’t help the occasional feeling that because I can’t rock long hair, I’m not “really” feminine.
@BeckySharper:
100% agreement about the bumpit. Did you know they come in different sizes? The worst is the mysteriously named “Hollywood Bumpit”, which hikes a girl’s hair so far off her scalp it looks like she has a football shoved in there.
Oh, boy. Hair has always been such an insanely charged thing in my life. Like the first poster,theorchidthief, I have red hair. I’m not the least bit vain about this, and never have been, but it happens to a particularly deep and vivid shade of red, and it caused torment in my childhood and all of kinds of weirdness to be projected onto me in my adulthood, including creepy men who stare at me with that awful “porn leer”, or smirk at me as though I’m some sort sex act waiting to happen.
But of all of things that piss me off the most, it’s mandate to keep it “long, feminine, and flowy.” I’m one of those people with fine features who happen to look better in very short pixie cuts. I’ve gone from long to short on a number of occasions, and I’m always annoyed at the level of outrage cutting my hair seems to evoke in people. You would not believe the comments that almost total strangers seem to feel entitled to make about my hair. It’s as though it’s a personal affront to men for me to cut my hair. No matter that it makes me look actually better and brings out my eyes–no one is looking at any other part of me except my damn hair. I get mournful comments, like, “Ooohh. You CUT it. It was so beautiful.”, etc, etc. Some complete stranger made a rude comment to me in the drugstore a while back…I didn’t even know the guy, he was just pissed that I dare have short hair. And I have men walk straight up to me and tell me outright never to cut my hair. I don’t even know these people!! I don’t understand why men find short hair on women so emasculating.
Right now, because of pressure at work, (yes, at work, of all places, where the expectation is clearly that all of the females have long, swingy, girly hair), I have it down to my shoulders again. It’s a pain in the ass to take care of, and it does nothing for my face, but clearly no one’s really interested in what I actually look like, just that I have “the hair”.
@ The Good Typist
That’s curious considering that long hair can be sported by both men and women. My mother has had a very short bob since I was 14 and took it as my mission to piss off Dad and cut mine shoulder length. Papa didn’t speak to either of us for a few days.
It’s funny since apparently your soul female entity is hair, at least according to my work place. Never mind your reproductive areas, your opinions and features (see earlier above rant).