I am not my hair

But it sure can influence my mood

I have a thing about my bangs. To cut (pun intended) to the chase, if my bangs look okay, I can deal with the rest of my head, even if it is doing its frizzy beach thing or bordering on Monica hair. If my bangs look like shit, I am in a bad mood all day.

If your mother cut your hair in the 1950s, you understand why. When I was growing up, girls’ bangs hung (they were so short, they didn’t actually hang. They laid…) maybe an inch below the hairline, leaving a wide expanse of forehead framed by chopped off fringe. On some little girls, that fringe blended into a bob of straight hair that seemed purposefully styled. In my case, my mother tamed my soft, wavy locks by creating a severe part in the middle of my head from the top of my bangs down to the nape of my neck. She then gathered my tresses into two high pony tails, secured with small colored rubber bands (rubber bands! Not coated Goody elastic ouchless hair elastics) that had to be cut out before I went to bed. It is no wonder I am prone to headaches and have a small bald spot at the point where the ponies pulled away from each other.

I wore my hair that way until fourth or fifth grade, at which point my hair was trimmed into the previously mentioned bob (the so-called Prince Valiant cut). I sported that look for a number of years, partly because I was in my tomboy stage and could push my hair behind my ears to appear more boyish. (Sidebar: Is there such a thing as a tomboy anymore? I never wanted to change gender. I just liked baseball and wasn’t a very girly girl). For special occasions (my sixth grade commencement photo, my Aunt Judy’s wedding), I went to a beauty shop where my hair was styled around a pixie band (a circle of fabric that fit behind your ears), the two side blobs of hair resembling a smaller version of the Princess Leia pastry ‘do (description courtesy of the scene in Friends with Phoebe and Rachel).

I am sure my mother thought she was doing me a grand favor when she schlepped me to her beauty parlor to get my hair professionally styled—the wash and the set with wire curlers and bobby pins and the hour under the dryer and the comb out and the teasing—because that was what she did every week. She spent the intervening days going to bed with her head wrapped in toilet paper, secured by a mesh net, her hair not washed until the next visit to the salon. I was lucky if my hairstyle survived whatever event I had been dolled up for, as my first round of sixth grade photos will attest (thank goodness for retakes; however, the wrong version appears in the class picture). I also had my hair done for my first boy-girl party when I was ten. I wore a dress that would have been more appropriate for a semi-formal event, while all the other girls showed up to the pizza parlor in casual skirts and sweaters and long, straight hair. It was quite the comeuppance, and I am convinced that my heartthrob, the birthday boy Marlowe, never again reached out to me because of that fashion debacle.

That incident made me more aware of my appearance and clothes. I didn’t change my look until about eighth grade, when I cut my bland, flat, shoulder-length hair very short. I don’t remember why. I just know that style was short-lived—by ninth grade, my hair finally had grown out long enough (for me, not my mom) to pull back (not up) into pony tails. Meanwhile, I had started setting my freshly washed hair in pink sponge rollers and drying it under a shower cap-like bonnet attached to the hose of a portable hair dryer.

Just like mine!

In tenth grade, I had shoulder-length hair I wore straight with bangs and a pixie band. I am not quite sure when, but around that time I transitioned to putting my wet hair up into a pony tail, wrapping it around a large, orange juice can-sized gold plastic curler (some girls actually used orange juice cans), and drying it under my portable dryer. My hair was far from thick, but drying it took at least an hour; being tethered meant I completed my homework like a good girl the nights I washed my hair.

Through the years, I tried a bunch of popular shampoos, having access to a variety of products at my dad’s pharmacy. Prell. Breck. I never sampled Lustre Creme, Halo, White Rain, or Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific. I went back to Johnson’s Baby Shampoo for a time until I realized it left my hair too baby soft, so Prell was my go to. I started using Dippity Do, a pink gel that helped tame the waviness. That was the extent of my product use well into adulthood. I taped my bangs to a sanitary pad to get some lift along with the straightness. The scene in The Trouble With Angels, when Mary secures Rachel’s taped sideburn curls, is iconic of 1960s hair styling, as is the part when their classmates are ironing their hair. I never tried that. I hate ironing.

About the time I started dating Bruce in tenth grade, I became obsessed with how my hair looked. I still did the big curler routine. I still wore my hair long (at least to my shoulders) and straight, sometimes gathered “half up” into a barrette or elastic band, concealed under a ribbon (my senior prom look). My parents cut my hair, usually using my bra as the guide where to trim across my back and my eyebrows as a straight edge for the bangs.

We had only one cutting disaster: I once asked my grandmom to cut my hair. It was summer, and I was sporting two side-perched pony tails. She just cut the ponies in half. I went to a professional to have the length evened out. Thereafter, I stuck with accepting her offers of chicken salad versus haircuts.

Peanuts (the comic strip characters) calendars that hung on my bedroom door served as my daily journals through my last two years of high school and first months of college. I still have those calendars. I mention my hair a ridiculous number of times. January 2, 1968: Wore my hair in a pony tail. January 19: Hair up again. Hope I can cut it soon. Went over big (two exclamation points). February 13: Hair looks good. February 17: Mommy and Daddy cut my hair (five exclamation points). Many mentions of “washed hair.” Funny the stuff I thought was journal-worthy.

Although not documented in a calendar box, around this time (or shortly after) I discovered Curl Free. The product was a reverse perm—you set your hair with a large roller after applying the ammonia-smelling gorp to achieve a straight look. I don’t remember Curl Free having much of an effect; it was more an act of desperation.

By the end of college, I had pretty much given up on short, straight bangs and grew them out with the intent to lessen the kinky wisps around my face. Having hair all one length also made it easier to pull it up into a top pony tail, a.k.a., “pineapple.”

Of course, we all cemented our hair with Aqua Net to preserve our styling efforts. But one day, I discovered an all-black can of hair spray called Saturday Night. It had a much lighter mist and gentler scent than the stuff in the big red can. I loved it. I swore by it. And then it disappeared. If anyone knows where to get Saturday Night hair spray, please message me.

I had my hair professionally coiffed for our wedding by my mom’s beautician, who had become a friend owing to my mom’s weekly visits and, as such, attended our event. She meticulously incorporated my headpiece into my hair do and made sure I would look just as lovely once I removed it after the ceremony. I think I would have enjoyed being pampered in her shop more if one of her clients had not been having a stroke (literally) as I was being combed out. Since then, I only have had my hair done for each of our kids’ weddings.

The year I got pregnant with Missy (my second year of teaching), I cut my hair short again, thinking it would save time before work and once the baby arrived. I vacillated between short and chin-length hair into my thirties, my friend Sharon begging me to refrain from the short cuts. I had finally stopped using the bonnet hair dryer and learned how to blow dry but not particularly well. I also realized I could avoid bed head by washing my hair in the morning. But because I shower at night, that meant washing my hair in the kitchen sink when I woke up. That is still my routine and a habit the grandkids find quite comical.

My efforts to blow my hair out straight often were/are futile; even the lowest dewpoint encourages the curl to return. I’ve learned my hair is so humidity-receptive, it frizzes while I am washing dishes. When I went to a new hair dresser in search of an updated “look,” she suggested I stop fighting the curl and go with a perm to control it. What fun! I could wash my hair and then just finger fluff with the blow dryer or let it air dry, my bangs blended into the curls. Although I still saw myself as a girl of the 1960s with long, straight hair, giving into the natural curl, even curly bangs, allowed me to look finished, like I intended to have unruly corkscrew tendrils. I could do my own hair for most major events.

You may be asking, Why did you get a perm if your hair is naturally curly/wavy? About 10 years into the perm process, I wondered the same thing. My beautician’s illness forced her to shorten her hours, giving me the opportunity to change practitioners without hurting feelings. The perms stopped. Instead, I went for cuts with layers that were not too difficult to manage and encouraged the curl. I now put my hair in the hands of my talented, book-recommending stylist, Joanne; she has become a master of my wayward, graying hair, applying her gifted sheers so I can go straight or curly as I wish. It also doesn’t hurt that certain of her facial expressions remind me of my mom.

For years, it was easier for me to go for a straight look only at home. Tamed curls on vacation were too difficult to achieve. Then I realized if I brought along a brush and a dryer like the ones I used at home (I always tote my own Herbal Essence shampoo and Suave gel and hair spray), I might be able to go straight. Tah-dah! I can’t always smooth out my hair as well as when the weather is cool and dry, and my hair may not like the water in the hotel or at the beach house, but I am getting better at blow outs, not simply finger combing, except in extreme humidity.

For the most part, I have returned to the days of shoulder-length straight hair and bangs. I am not sure if I am trying to recapture the look of my teen years or whether this is a flattering and easy style to achieve, given my tennis elbow, hot flashes while drying my hair, and limited knowledge of products. I still sport beach hair on hot, lazy days. And to avoid bad moods, I hurry past mirrors when I know that no matter what I do, my hair is having a mind of its own day.

May we all have a happy, frizz-free Fourth!

The bangs of the 1950s. My hair is down for this photo shoot, perhaps to hide the bald spot.