Hair

I Love that Laini and Meg decided to make HAIR the Scribblings topic this week! My mind went in a million directions. Too much to write about on this topic of course! Do I take the best of all my clients stories? Do I tell you the down side of cutting hair? Maybe share my best makeovers? Do I share the glamour behind the scenes? The stuff no one knows about like plucking coarse hairs out of my expensive bras with a tweezer? Oh that is nothing! Sometimes those babies go right on through the nylon, Trust me It's not a pleasant tale! Rather than write a post that could fill a book, I have opted to talk about MY hair. Like most women I talk with, I have always hated my hair. From the beginning.....
I was not given much to work with. Fuzzy, thin and curly. Yikes! ( You've seen this photo before I know, but it is my only baby picture!)
My hair got a little better as shown here.... my son ( getting the cut) inherited his dads beautiful hair!

I've mostly worn my hair curly. During the farrah days of the mid 70's, I struggled with the blow dryer, dying for those sausage rolls on the side of my head like all my friends seemed to have naturally. During the late 70's I became a hairstylist. Do you know what hairstylists do when business is slow? Yeah.. We experiment on each other! My favorite look was when a colorist convinced me that Purple was my color. He gave me a heavy highlighting and colored me with crazy color.( I so wish I had a pic. of this look) I must admit, when I was in full makeup and hip clothes for work or going out, The purple was really flattering and fun. However, On my days off from work and makeup... I was a scary sight. I gave up that look soon after some kids followed me out of Waldbaums laughing and pointing and causing me to resort to finger gestures!
Styles changed and my curly hair was in high demand. One Perm after another Perm, I was giving unhappy women the look that I had been unhappy with to make them.... happy!? I was so caught up in the frenzy that I let someone give ME a perm, hoping if I used Very large rods, my tight curls would be as loose and sexy as Madonna was during the same era.
No such luck, in spite of the knowledge and talents of my fellow stylists, I now had a fuzzier head of tighter curls than I knew what to do with. I vowed to just leave myself alone and only did semi-permanent tints for shine and body for many years.
Through this discontented hair journey, my husband who is an amazing stylist, suggested going blonde. I never took him seriously, and I always worried that it would be too damaging to my baby-fine, thin, dark-brown hair. About 5 years ago, I put my worries aside and let him do his thing and promised I wouldn't interfere. ( Not an easy task for a know it all chatterbox) The results were astounding. After 43 years of hating my hair, I actually loved it!
First, because he did a beautiful job on the color and highlighting. Second, due to the damage the bleach causes,it actually pumped up the hair cuticle, I finally felt like I had MORE hair! ( self portrait, isn't the best example) With daily conditioning treatments and monthly trims, my hair still feels healthy. Without the contrast of Dark hair on white scalp, I'm not as self conscious about having thin hair. I feel like I should quote one of my favorite characters! " if you ever go looking for your hearts desire, you shouldn't look any further than your own backyard"
Glad you were in our backyard honey xo
(hope you turn up the volume and listen to "samson"