Our Complicated Relationship with Hair

I got my hair cut yesterday.

This is no big deal, I suppose. People get their hair cut all the time. But I don't. In fact, I have it done so infrequently that I didn't even know how to respond when asked by a coworker, "So, where'd you have it done?" I stumbled over the phrasing. It wasn't really "my salon," and the woman who did the work wasn't really "my stylist".... Finally, my coworker just shook her head at my awkward phrasing, "Well, it's this woman I've seen a couple of times who, ummm, ... " -- "I just wanted to know if you went to a salon or had a friend do it," she laughed.

One would think that, by the ripe old age of fifty-one, I'd have this particular female ritual down pat by now. But, in truth, I've never felt comfortable in a salon. And, honestly, I've never much cared about my appearance beyond wearing clean clothes that don't make me look fat, and throwing on a bit of eyeliner, mostly so people don't tell me I look tired.

Hair? Meh. -- My older sister was always more of a hair person, but she has a much higher tolerance for primping than I do. All those bottles and tubes of gel and spray. And the electronics: blow-dryers and rollers and irons. The stylist asked me yesterday if I use a straight-iron on my hair, which in its natural state is a tiny bit curly when just out of the shower but flattens over time. (Or I assume it does, since I don't really pay much attention. It's flat by the end of the day, that's all I could tell you.) A straight-iron? Are you kidding? Do people do that? Take the time to iron the waves out of their hair? Who has time for that? Who cares if my hair is wavy or straight??

Maybe it's because I've always had thin hair and was seemingly perpetually defeated at a fairly early age by any aspirations I ever had for Beautiful Hair. I had the Dorothy Hamill cut, as did every good little American girl who lived through the 70s, though my hair was too "flyaway" (do boys ever have "flyaway hair," or is that just a girl thing?) for it to have had that shiny weighty bob quality. And in an effort to give my hair "more body," I suffered permanent wave after permanent wave of curls ranging from ridiculously tight and frizzy, to the "why bother" of loose waves that washed out after just a couple of weeks. I hate to think how much my vanity contributed to the toxic waste pollution of the planet over those years -- the smell of those permanents alone could just about burn the hairs out of your nostrils.

Rollers? I tried those, too. Hot rollers and the sleep-on spongey rollers. Curling irons -- Oh, yes, I had the tell-tale burn-stripe on my forehead many a day in junior high. My mom used to try to curl my hair the way she learned while growing up, by wrapping my wet hair in long strips of soft cloths then tying them up in these little Princess Leia bundles all over my head, and the next morning I would indeed have long luxurious tube-like curls, for at least enough time for the school photographer to shoot his few portraits. Those curls, too, slid from my wimpy locks by the end of the school day.

The greatest defeat was clearly in high school, though, when both my sister and I desperately wanted to have hair like Stevie Nicks. I mean, in truth, we wanted to BE Stevie Nicks. Didn't everyone? That scene in "School of Rock," where Joan Cusack starts dancing to "Edge of Seventeen" on the jukebox? Yeah, that resonated.

But my sister & I would take photos of Stevie to our stylist, Karen (I just used the same woman as my sister, and latched on to calling her MY stylist, as well) at every visit. And at every visit, Karen would shake her head, "Stevie Nicks has a lot of hair. A LOT! You girls don't have a lot of hair, and what you do have is thin. Sorry." Still, we would try. And end up looking like Stevie's malnourished sisters, with limp clumps of feathered (yep, "feathered") wisps lying flat against our heads. No amount of Aqua Net could solve that dilemma.

So, after a brief phase of trying for the 80s looks of "asymmetry with bold colors" in college, I just gave up. Short hair, long hair. I didn't care. It didn't matter. My hair was uncooperative. So I just let it grow, and then disciplined it into a ponytail whenever I didn't want to deal with it, visiting the salon just often enough (about once or twice a year) to keep my work clients from wondering if I ever looked at myself in the mirror at all. If I felt inspired to pick up scissors on my own, I could sometimes go years at a stretch before having to concede to professional work.

Blurry college snap -- it's asymmetrical. Trust me.

High school graduation, 80s hair

Then one day, about two years ago, I decided I wanted to cut my hair short. So I asked my husband if he would mind -- him being a fan, as most men seem to be, of long hair on women. He said he didn't mind, I could do what I like. But then he said something about making sure I found a good stylist, "not someone who has their salon in their basement," which was a dig at a place I'd chosen a few years prior. The woman had done a fine job, but he couldn't get over the fact that she had her office in her own house! How gauche! -- I, having grown up having my hair cut, alongside my mother, in "Ida Marie's Hair Salon" in Lorain, Ohio, in Ida Marie's very own home, had thought nothing of it. -- I called him a snob, and the next morning he told me he wanted a divorce.

But I digress.

Fast-forward two years, and there I sit in the stylist's chair. And I notice it's a busy place; there are a lot of other women around me getting their hair cut and styled and colored and .... other stuff, too -- I couldn't begin to tell you what all.  And most of them are wearing black stylish clothing. And high heels, even though it's November and already icy & snowy in Alaska. Not just the stylists, but the customers, as well. I am clearly underdressed for my haircut. Faux-pas #1.

And I can't do the chatter. My stylist is pregnant, so I try to talk about that. But I don't have kids, so, ummm..... We stumbled through, because she's a true professional and knows how to talk to strangers for hours on end about nothing, something I'm neither skilled at nor interested in. [TWO dangling prepositions -- Ha!] Faux-pas #2 ... and #3, if you count the prepositions.

I had also decided to have some blobs of color applied, so I was in that salon for about three hours. In that time, easily two dozen customers filled then vacated the stylists' chairs scattered around the salon. Mostly women, but a few men came in, as well. On a Tuesday morning.  -- Don't people have jobs?

And once again I was struck by this entire industry that exists for a service I only patronize maybe once a year. There were shampoos and conditioners and styling gels and sprays and other goo. There were racks of jewelry and purses and scarves. There was make-up and nail polish.... An entire room of people having manicures and pedicures.

I don't do any of this. Ever. And so it fascinates me that such an industry can even survive, that my stylist can make enough money to support herself.

And, inevitably, it got me to thinking about women in society. How it seems we're expected to be beautiful all the time. -- Yes, yes, I'm sure there are plenty of women who enjoy the primping and fuss, I get that. But I also wonder how much of it is culturally cultivated and rewarded, and so we take those values to be our own. What it means to be "pretty." All that fuss and discomfort: high heels, pantyhose or tights, clothing that pushes us this way & that... don't even get me started on Spanx.  -- And then I inevitably think about what men are expected to endure to be handsome, and somehow it always seems less. And I can never decide if, in my own mind, there's some oppression of women inherent in that disparity, or if it's just my own bias because I'm so opposed to the Beauty Race.

... But I survived my day in the chair. And now my hair is short, and still fine and "flyaway" so I guess I'll end up having to use some sort of "product" because that incarcerating ponytail is probably a year away now, and I'll have to find some other means to tame the beast. And I'll probably have to visit the stylist more often as it grows out. So I suppose I'll have ample opportunity to continue to study this phenomenon of women and beauty and their relationship in modern American society. And as soon as I come up with some definitive answers, I'll let you know. But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

And, in the meantime, there's always a hat fetish waiting to be indulged.