HAIR CUTS
I hate getting my hair cut.
Nothing causes me more agony than deciding if I should change my “look” or just tidy-up the old one. Asking other people for ideas is not always a good idea. Trying to ask a man for an opinion is like asking a rock — you won’t get one. Or if you do, it will be a wishy-washy one like “you always look great no matter what you do”.
I’m not clear on what is “in” these days. Oh sure, I can look at the styles in magazines. But just like a kid in a candy store, I have a tendency to make choices that aren’t good for me — ones I can’t maintain once I exit the salon. If I have to use a curling iron or anything other than a regular hair-dryer to tame a hair-do into submission, I’m not doing it.
I have straight hair, and when I say straight I mean “stick-straight”. It has absolutely no body. My hair is so fine I can predict a lightning strike, no problem. Just get me in the vicinity of a thunderstorm and my hair levitates from the static electricity, like the Bride of Frankenstein.
How I long for heavy, shiny tresses that bounce up and down and curl daintily about the shoulders.
What do I have? A blunt cut of dark-brown hair that holds a curl for maybe 5 nanoseconds. I look like Mo from the Three Stooges.
There was a time when the Dorothy Hamill look was in. Women lined up to get their hair cut to resemble an inverted bowl. I resisted that one. Then having permanent curls was all the rage — and I succumbed. I underwent the expensive agony of hours of curlers, lotions and multiple washes to produce hair that resembled a Brillo® pad. It lasted maybe one week.
It’s amazing what women will endure for the sake of beauty.
Personally, I couldn’t sit still for foil highlighting. Having hair with “multi-faceted highlights” isn’t worth spending hours with a head full of spiky foil, looking like a space alien. What’s wrong with uniform hair-color anyway? Why does it have to be “highlighted”? Given my dark hair, I’d need to be dunked in peroxide to obtain any color variation not resembling skunk stripes.
These days it’s becoming more acceptable to have hair color that’s unnatural, for humans. Bright reds, blues and purples are colors that come to mind. If the idea is to resemble a tropical bird or the rump of a Mandrill monkey, such ladies have nailed the look dead-on. Personally, I don’t understand why you’d want a bold hair color and risk clashing with your clothing. Neutral colors like black, brown and blond go with everything.
Men don’t go to hair-dressers like women do, they go to barbers. The implication is that women need to have something fancy done with their hair—men don’t. To dispel this myth, I decided to get my hair cut in a barber shop. I went to an old-fashioned one with a rotating red-and-white striped pole outside.
The shop was filled with noisy, male patrons who promptly fell silent at my entrance. One of the barbers asked me if I was lost. But I was firm about being there for a haircut. So I waited my turn. I waited and waited. I think they were hoping I’d get tired and leave. But I was stubborn.
Just before closing time, one the barbers finally seated me in his chair. “So, what’ll it be?” he asked.
“I’ll have a little off the sides and top. A ‘high and tight’.” I heard one of my military friends say this once. I thought it sounded pretty cool. Little did I know that I’d asked for a brush-cut a la early Sinead O’Connor. I found out in a hurry, though.
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