Hair Trauma Past and Present, by Deb Eileen

I have never reached an orgasm from washing my hair in the way that the commercials promise me. Never. Not even when I buy the shampoo that should be made from crushed diamonds and distilled elephant saliva because it is so expensive. When I toss my head with abandon like the women in hair commercials it gives me a headache. I suspect this is due to the velocity of my brain smacking into the side of my skull. It may look flirty, but it isn’t worth the brain injury.

I have spent roughly a zillion dollars in my lifetime on hair cuts or hair products all designed to give me good hair. If I had just saved up the money I could be retired and living in the Bahamas by now. I would be bald, but with the savings I could get a hat.

I always wanted really good hair. Good hair being defined as the opposite of whatever I have. When it is curly I wish I could get it straight, when it is straight, I wish it had a bit of bounce. If I have short hair I want to wear it up, once I grow it long I think I would look snappier with a chic short cut. At any given time it is either too light or too dark. My hair has been a near constant source of stress in my life. In most photos I look like I am wearing a stuffed weasel on my head. A weasel with mange. This is not a look I am trying to cultivate, it just seems to happen.

Then there is the bad cut syndrome…

I too have suffered the childhood trauma of the Dorothy Hamill cut. Curse you Dorothy you skating vixen! Then there was the poorly planned asymmetrical hair cut. I have a school photo of this one. I am looking jauntily out at the camera wearing my blue vest and skinny black leather tie (fashion has been another challenge for me) with hair that looks like only one side of my head was trapped in the paper shredder.

As I was a teen of the 80’s, I went through a period where I liked really LARGE hair. Pump up the volume as it were. The hair to face ratio in these photos is significantly skewed.

The past few years I’ve gone with safe hair. It isn’t a style where people stop me on the street and ask me where I got it cut, but then again they also don’t stop me and ask what happened. For now I’ll content myself with trying out a few more of these fancy shampoos and seeing how that works out.

9 Replies to “Hair Trauma Past and Present, by Deb Eileen”

  1. I did Dorothy, although I managed to avoid the asymmetrical. I also did Tenille from Captain and Tenille and tried Farrah. None of it worked for me. Perms or long in ponytails is usually where I ended up.

  2. You are so hilarious! I love the mangy weasel. OMG, I laughed so hard. Yes, hair has been the bane of many a woman’s existence. I’ve been pretty lucky in this area, since I got the nice hair of the family, but if you want to talk about hips…

  3. Sounds to me that we share some “natural wave” in our hair. On good days, I want to “freeze dry” the look and, as for the bad days, I tend to think that a coonskin cap is sitting atop my head…very much like your mangy weasel. ;o) Thanks, Eileen, it’s great to know I’m not alone!

  4. I never did the Dorothy, but I did have the Princess Di thing going on in the early 80’s. Unforunately, I didn’t look like a princess, I looked like one of the Beatles.

  5. I had the Dorothy Hamill cut and also the bad asymmetrical cut. I also had a really bad Stevie Nicks kinda thing going on for awhile somewhere in between those two. Even had the wardrobe to go with it. An unfortunate (but thankfully short-lived) period for me.

  6. Good hair vs safe hair … it’s a moral dilemma, isn’t it? I’m not even sure which I’d choose. Good, safe, good, safe. Then again, it’s not as if I’ve ever really had much say over how my hair turned out. It seems like the only time my hair really worked (where I TOTALLY loved it and it obeyed my every command) was on the mornings I was due for a haircut (this has happened on at least five occasions …)

  7. “Good hair defined as the opposite of whatever I have” — ah, how I relate. I’ve had my hair straightened for the past few years, remembering those curls I hated so much with such fondness…

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