Monday, October 21, 2019

Hair

I don't think I've ever fallen into the trap of following hair trends. Mainly I've had mine long with the odd excursion into sort of short but never all the way there as stylists were always appalled when I thought I could pull off a Helen Mirren.

But your head, they said, it's very - um - large.

Large it is, I can never find a hat to fit it. Stopped trying a long time ago.

I think it all depends on whether you're a hair off the face person or not.

I find that many men get very sensitive about hair as they age. The increasing absence of it.

Here I am around 16. Not much has changed in my preferred hairstyle in sixty years. Up or down, it's long.

I've always had super thick hair (enough for two heads, one of my aunts put it) but it did start to thin out a few years ago and I realized that all the complaining about it when younger had put a jinx on it and now I, too, was going bald. So I had utmost sympathy for the above mentioned balding men. I was now in their club, so to speak.

Well, I didn't go bald. But alarmed I was and someone said up your vitamin E intake which I did and it stopped the hair loss.

So then I started to regrow it in earnest. Mainly because I know this woman who has this marvelous white/grey messy pigtail down her back and I wanted to be like her when I grew up even though she was 10 years younger than me. My hair will never be that lovely silvery thing. It has always looked like a bad dye job. And I haven't dyed mine in oh, say 30 years. Right now it is silvery/grey/brown on my head and then further down, a nice shiny brown. I tie it back right now and it cascades nicely (I think) but I don't ever see the back of me as I walk around so they all could be pointing and laughing and mocking and I wouldn't know, would I.

While my hope would be for it to be like this:

So hair - men and women alike. How do you accommodate aging hair. Chop it all off? Polish your expanding pate? Let it grow? Spend lots and lots on crimping and dying and blonding? Grieve your younger hair?

Do tell.

PS And just for the hell of it, here's a treat.


32 comments:

  1. The entire time I was a weaver, I had a #4 clipper hair cut. Then I retired and decided to grow a braid down my back.Fifteen years later it's still short.

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    1. Joanne does that mean it refused to grow or you've gone back to clipping?

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    2. It got long enough to put in a messy bun. Then one day it was just.too.long. I do go to a real hairdresser, now.

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  2. I'm keeping my red hair for now. I wear it short, having it cut and colored every 5 to 6 weeks. So far, I have been able to afford it.

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    1. One of my good friends does the same. She has said she'd rather get her hair done than eat. And she's done that a few times, living on cheap chips and ice cream bars.

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    2. Yes, eating is pretty important around here. My poor husband would not be happy if I didn't provide meals. I have, however, cut out the purchase of books and opted for the library. It's worked really well and will save me hundreds of dollars this year.

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    3. I never buy books anymore either DKZ but use the library, isn't it great? And no more storage issues with the books either. I have pruned so many home libraries in my moves!

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  3. Great song. My hair is thin so I keep it short, buzz cut.

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  4. I have never known my partner (of over 40 years) when he had hair. He compensates by refusing to trim his beard.
    My hair is curly, mostly grey and a little below my shoulders. My only requirement at the hairdressers is that it is wash and wear. No blow-drying, no product.

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    1. Wash and wear I could go for. I experimented a few times and it only looks good for about a week and then it looks like I had a bad fright in the middle of the night.

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    2. Wash and wear only looks good for one day for me. It's a whole different look after I've slept on it.

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  5. The tiltle made the song start inside my head. And I still live by it's words: Give me down to there hair / Shoulder length or longer / Here baby, there mama / Everywhere daddy daddy / Hair / Flow it, show it / Long as God can grow it / My hair. (well I stop at fleas!)
    It's straight, not wery long, say middle chest, but it's not been cut for over 20 years. The colours are middle blond to white intertwined. I am not going to cut it short, dye it or do anything to it. I braid it in two or make a ponytail when working. That's all.

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    1. I am much like you Uglemor. I braid it in two when I go to bed to avoid the mess of a nest when I wake up.

      I look in the mirror at night as I do it and think sweet Jeebus I remember my mother or my Granny doing this when I was 6. LOL

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  6. I'm envious of your super thick hair and I do miss my younger-me hair which was a bit thicker than it is now, but never ever long enough. I've had a few forays into short, but always get fed up with the constant trimming a short style needs, plus I HATE all the tiny snipped bits getting down into my clothes and itching me. so now I'm growing it again, but it has a pre-determined length apparently and never gets more than about 6 inches past my shoulders. Right now it's about two inches past my collar, if I wore things with collars and I'd really prefer it to grow to my waist or hips. Still, any hair is better than none. I gave up dying it about 15 years ago.

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    1. I remember a wise old woman telling me that the skin of the scalp was so sensitive to dyes and bleaches and that this stuff, which we wouldn't drink, seeps into the bones of the scalp and on to the brain and it made sense to me.

      My hair is no longer super thick but it is not balding so am happy with that.I am truly curious as to how long it will grow though.

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  7. Glad to hear vitamin E stopped your hair loss.

    I have a small bald patch, which is okay as I can't see it except in a mirror, but I would hate to go totally bald, I just find baldness very unattractive. So unattractive I could see myself resorting to a wig.

    But otherwise I'm happy with my hair as it is. I've no great urge to have curly hair, or longer hair, or dyed hair. It's short and manageable and that's enough for me.

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    1. Maybe you should go for the buzz like Andrew> Hair is such an individual thing though. I can never, ever look like Helen Mirren even on a good day so I just embrace who I am and my own peculiarities.

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  8. I've gone with both long and short but pretty much the same style: straight down with bangs. I have occasionally eliminated the bangs and some time in my late 30s/early 40s I played with curly, with varying results. These days short because it's easy; I can go days without even brushing or combing, just kind of patting it into place. I only cut it when it stops being easy and recently have learned to cut it myself. It has gotten thinner with age but still thick enough. Long hair gets in my eyes and my mouth and there's always loose hair on my clothes. Plus it has to be brushed or combed every day or else it gets tangled. I fantasize about getting it shaved off just to have that much longer between cuttings, lol. Helen Mirren looks great, as does the woman with the long braid. Obviously they are people who care about how it looks and have the faces (and hair!) to pull off the styles they go for.

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    1. I guess what it boils down to Annie is that we ourselves are happy with it and not longing for something that requires extremely high maintenance, I've never been that type of person. What you see is what you get. But for some reason a long braid really speaks to me these days.

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  9. Mine has always been long since high school. Just this year it is starting to have a silver shiny piece coming in like highlights. I was tickled to see it was a shiny silver like old fashioned icicles on a Christmas tree. It was going to be different than most I see. Just letting it go the color it is naturally. I like the long braid, but mine is so fine and always has been there isn't a lot there to braid. But I have been weighing options on what to do. Will be interested in everyone's responses.

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    1. Wow what a lovely surprise that silvery icicle effect is! I have no idea what lies ahead for me as my mother died without a grey hair in her head in her fifties. Granny had an iron grey effect going, very thick and had two braids wound into a crown on her head. A lovely effect.

      Apparently it's our mother's genes which mainly call the shots in our hair. Both in men and women. A friend has a lovely silver short do but I know I couldn't carry it off.

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  10. I used to have thick, bushy hair and had a hard time managing it. Now, at age 73, I have bald spots on my scalp which means I have to do a comb over. Even Donald Trump does it.

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    1. You make me laugh Gigi, I've seen your younger pics and your hair was like mine then, masses of it.

      You are very accepting of the bald spots but far from a DT are you indeed!!

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  11. I always say my hair's probably my best feature -- thick and shiny. Also: straight, not a wave in sight. And at least two cowlicks. Once upon a time -- for about 10 years -- it was very long and I often wore it in one or two French braids before they were trendy. I still love braids but won't go back to long hair; it's too much of a pain in the ass. So is short hair, come to that. I like it to be wash 'n' wear every day, and at the hairdresser's -- no blowdrying, no product -- just let me out of the chair please. All I care about is that it's off my face, even if it doesn't want to be. I'm an ash blond and still have a lot of that colour but silver coming in, and a patch of white on one side in front -- my hairdresser says people pay big bucks to get my colour and it looks like I've had highlights put into it, but I haven't. I like it fine as it is, plus I'm poor and cheap. Hee! Really I can't be bothered with that stuff anymore. Hair dying, which I've never done but once when I let a hairdresser talk me into dying it red, and highlights have gone the way of makeup for me -- can't see the point of any of it. Lucky to like it just as it is -- if only it would stay off my face. -Kate

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    1. I'm like you Kate, can't stand it near my face so always tied back or pushed back or whatever.

      Right now this length is great, I can do pigtails when I have to and it's off my face.

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  12. I am blessed. I have no hair problem because all that I have is a friar's fringe and totally grey. What can I do with it?

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    1. Well you could die it purple Ramana and really frighten your dogs :)

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  13. Well, as you know, I started this year completely bald, so I have loads of sympathy for balding men. I always had basically straight (a wee bit wavy when it was humid), fine har. Now it's thicker and curly, but starting to straighten again. I stopped coloring more than a year before chemo, so there's a fair amount of gray mixed in with the brown. This weekend, my younger son patted my head and said, "I like your gray curls, mommle." So do I. When my hair is back to being straight, I'm thinking of cutting it super short - I liked that style when it was first growing back in.

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    1. I think you have the face and head for the short 'do SAW, I truly liked your hair growing in. And you know what they say about dyeing it, the chemicals seep into the skull, it can't be a good thing. Grey curls are beautiful, a friend has these and I could spit with envy.

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