My Lifelong Battle with My Hair

Do you know any woman who is happy with her hair?  I have to believe someone out there likes her hair, but it does seem that everyone wants what they don’t have.  If it’s straight, they want it curly.  If it’s curly, they want it straight.

My hair has always been a frustration for me.  It always seems like everyone else’s hair looks so nice all the time.  I feel like mine never looks nice.  It never looks the same from one day to another because I can’t control it.   One side is curlier than the other.  It frizzes even without humidity but is ten times worse when it’s humid.  It never looks “styled”.  (Some might say it’s because I don’t spend much time on it. 🙂 )

Younger hair days

When I was a kid, my mom always cut my hair.  I know many of you had the same problem I did with that.  She always cut my bangs too short!!  I think it was usually a mistake (or was it?), but the end result was always short bangs.   And you can’t add that hair back.   She’d start out trying to even them out and pretty soon they were super short!!  My hair shrinks when it dries, so if they were short when wet, they were VERY short when they dried.

I also had hair that waved and curled, but not where I wanted it to.  For instance, my bangs.  They would curl into wings with the humidity and always look goofy.  Well, I thought they did.

To help with that, we used this product called “dippity do”.  Remember it?  

I’d slather this gel on my bangs and then use this special pink tape to stick them to my forehead.   Boy, that takes me back in time.

The gel would dry and my bangs would be stiff until I combed them out.  This would make them straight, at least for a while.

I’d try long hair, then short hair.  I’d have bangs and then grow them out.  When it was long, I’d try to pull it back into a ponytail but I never thought I looked good with it like that.  I was so jealous of anyone who had long, straight hair and could make it look good no matter what.  Especially if they looked good in the morning, straight out of bed.

Do you remember the time before blow dryers?  I remember using a hair dryer with a cap that filled up with air.  

Then we upgraded to one with a solid lid that you sat under, kind of like what they had at the beauty salon.  

I also used hot rollers at one point.  I remember they were hard and prickly and could make my head sore.  I used rollers mostly to straighten my hair.    They looked kind of like these.

And remember the pink spongey rollers?  Or the giant size rollers, which were good for me since I didn’t want tight curls?

High school and college days

I can’t remember exactly when I started doing this or even where the idea originated, but I had a nice way to “straighten” my hair.  I’d put one super big roller on the crown of my head, and then wrap the rest of my hair around my head.  Then I’d dry it or let it air dry, if I had time.  This definitely made my hair smoother and straighter, even though both sides of my hair tended to curl in the same direction.

I will admit that I’m lazy when it comes to my hair.  I think that’s because even when I spend more time on it, it still doesn’t look very good.  I figure why bother, and try to find “styles” that don’t require much effort.  But sometimes you get what you put into it, and my hair often looks like I didn’t give much of an effort.

The cut is important.  I once had a cut that made my hair lay flat against my head on the sides because it was so short.  Ick.  Mostly, I avoid layers, because I have a LOT of hair and layers can make it even bushier.  According to my stylist, my hair isn’t thick.  My hair is actually fine; I just have a lot of it which makes it look thick.

My hair does not always do well with air drying.  Nothing lays nicely and it gets frizzy.  I do better if I dry it a little with the blow dryer and then let it air dry to finish.  And I use a diffuser, so I don’t blow out the curl/wave I actually want and end up with a bunch of frizz.

I’ve always tended to get sick of my hair, whether it’s long or short.  I still need to change it fairly often.  It seems right after I get a new cut, my hair looks great.  It’s almost as if I’ve fooled it.  Then it wises up and starts taking control again and won’t do what I try to make it do.

My hair these days

Towards the end of my working days, I was using a curling iron every day to get it as smooth and straight as I could.  This wasn’t very good for my hair and my long bangs kept getting shorter and shorter because the ends were breaking off.  Once I stopped working, I knew I needed a change.  I was walking outside and I simply didn’t want to spend much time on my hair.  So, my stylist cut my hair shorter and with mousse and a blow dryer, I was set each day.

That was two years ago and I’m sick of it again.  My hair is hot (remember, I have a lot of it) and frizzy and always in my face.  And I shed as much as the cats!!

So, last week, I had her cut my hair even shorter.  It’s still pretty easy to take care of.  I can mousse it and dry it about 50% and then let it finish air drying.  It’s VERY short in the back – she stacked it – and longer on the sides and front.

I told her to cut my bangs because I was so tired of having them in my face all the time.  She was hesitant to do that; she’s been doing my hair long enough that she knows I probably won’t like them short.  She said, “let’s start small, we can always cut more off”.  Good advice.  She thought maybe the heaviness of my hair in the back could be making it blow more in my face.  So, I let her do it.  And so far, I actually like it.

Now I’m just waiting to see how long it takes for my hair to figure out it’s been fooled and to fight back.  It always does!!  😈