Hair Affair

Me & My Mum, 1967
Photo credit: Flying With Hands

Dear Reader, my lovely mother and I were looking at this photograph recently.

"That straw hair of yours!", she said. 

Mum is 20 here (yes, a Child Bride) and I'm evidently thrilled to have turned One on this day. My big present, by the by, was Teddy, who you've met before around these pages. 

As you can see, Your Correspondent did not inherit her Mother's raven hair, but what you won't see is that neither did she inherit her ability to style said hair, even after a further 52 years have passed. Practise has not made perfect as Pipistrello has ... Hair Issues. Fine & straight at the front, thick & wiry at the back, a bit of a cowlick here and an ability to mat into wannabe dreadlocks there, all on its own volition, mind you, at the mere whiff of a breeze or glancing brush against a knit ... It pains me to admit I cannot master my own hair after all this time.

I necessarily keep mine long, as it gives more me more options for wrangling its unruliness into submission, and a sighting of a glorious mane of hair will always grab my attention. A casual glance at my Pinterest pages to see where my particular fantasies lie gives a good indication of my vexed relationship with my own tresses. Like any obsessive, I "pin" all manner of Hair Glories as inspiration. Par example, a youthful Lauren Hutton, below, sports my Idea of Unruliness:

Lauren Hutton and her joyous locks
Vogue, 1968
Photo via Pinterest

But with hair like straw? Yes, in Reality, Worzel Gummidge doth spring more to mind...

Delightful, non?
Image via Google

Growing up in the 70s, the shampoo in our bathroom cabinet at home came in a couple of flavours: Green Apple or Egg. Conditioner wasn't around then but a tiny, little bottle of optimistically-named Tame de-tangler was all for me and my Special Needs. Sadly, Tame never really worked.

Promises, promises
Image via Pinterest

Because I'm bewitched by fads, I've gone no-poo, so these days it's apple cider vinegar, unbelievably, that works a treat on those knots. It only took five decades to figure that out, but then any long-haired woman from ages past could easily have whispered the name of that magic elixir into the ear of any cloth-eared modern woman, deafened by Advertising and its siren's call of Promises. (Although Flex did a mighty good job, as I remember.)

I have not the disposition for a high-maintenance short cut & Mr P. is anyways a Man for Long Hair. So it is but once or twice a year that I trundle off for a cut, occasionally supplemented by a bit of scissor d-i-y at the bathroom mirror, and meanwhile Fuss About with pins, combs, hot rollers etc. And thank goodness for hats! Sheer laziness results in either the simple chignon or ballet bun as the go-to 'do, but the elaborate Up-Do worthy of gracing a satirical pamphlet circa 1776 is ever the goal.

High hair fashion in 1776
Why not today?!