My hair has always been a bone of contention for me. I’ve mostly struggled with finding the right style and endured much embarrassment through incorrect choices. So it got me thinking, where did all this start…
When I was very, very young, my grandfather would occasionally cut my hair. And as you can imagine, being around the ages of 0-5, it was kind of tough saying “Back off granddad, your styling is up to poop.” It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to picture the results of these scissor-sessions, just think pudding bowl, garden shears, terrified toddler and wannabe barber. Got it? Yes, not all that attractive.
At some stage my step-mum took to my hair, and she was a whizz with a razor of sorts, and I soon progressed to what was termed a feather-cut. A better description would be the mullet. Again not so attractive for a young girl who still had a rather round chubby face. Actually my whole body was chubby, so if you can imagine a hippo with a mullet, you’re kind of on the right track.
Then of course Princess Diana hit the scene, and I had the Diana cut, and let’s be fair, it doesn’t suit everybody, and it didn’t work for me.
From then on I struggled to find a style that really worked, and alternated through hair styled however-it was-at-that-moment, to short –and-boring-no-more-mullet.
I made a fatal mistake one day and had my hair cut on the day of a wedding. What a disaster! Pixie cut was cutting it fine, I might just as well have been scalped. But it’s funny how your memory blocks things, because I did it again, years later, during a lunch break. Suffice to say my colleagues gasped and laughed, and I went home wishing I could have a six month sabbatical while my hair grew back.
After that I migrated through a bob of varying lengths, depending on the scissor-cutter of the moment. Oh, I did have the Rachel, from Friends, cut that wasn’t bad, but as the right side of my hair insists on flipping the wrong direction, it was pretty tough to maintain.
So as I say, I drifted back to the bob. If you’ve ever had a bob, you’ll know how many versions there are of this. I’ve had the long at the front and short at the back bob, the extremely bouncy bob, the straighter than straight bob, the no fringe all hair one length bob and the far too short bob. Is it no wonder I have married a man called Bob…
My hair took on a terrifying look when I moved to Johannesburg. My sadistic scissor-cutter decided to give me a Cameron Diaz fringe. Don’t ask me why, but I kept going back to this stylist, and no matter how many times I asked her not to do that sticky up thing, she kept on doing it. Luckily we moved and my hair went into a whole new group of scissor-hands.
So now, current day, and my hair is long. I love it and have received a lot of compliments from family and friends who think I’ve finally got it right – taken me long enough! Problem is, I wake up in the morning looking like a demented yeti and spend far too long putting it right. A-ha, said my latest scissor-cutter, at night, put it in a pony-tail or bun, and in the morning you will be fine. I tried it and yes it works, albeit with the use of many, many clips. The end result being a sort of halo of sliver clamping wayward bits in place.
The trouble is I’m starting to feel like my nan. Nan never went to bed without clips and hair net in place. Retrospectively I wonder if she had a cobweb maker in her bathroom cabinet . I can imagine her brushing her teeth and then sticking her head in the cabinet and selecting either a light or heavy net button. Mostly the nets were a grey colour, but I’m sure she had a couple of lilac ones.
My husband must really be wondering what the hell is going on as I sit in bed, pinning my hair up and looking once again so not attractive. I will draw the line at the net though….hang on a minute, did I not mention I wouldn’t be wearing long-johns?
