Today the women of GenFab are doing a bloghop on “Fashion Disasters” from our past.
This topic gave me pause. Fashion disasters? I knew there were many. But I needed some inspiration, so I pulled several old photo albums off the shelf and started paging through.
I revisited some scary fashion moments: saddle shoes … hot pants … white go-go boots … halter tops … clunky clogs … the list goes on.
But with the turn of each yellowing page, I came to realize that no fashion faux pas, not one, could surpass the extreme fashion dysfunction of my hair.
I was born with naturally curly hair, a gift from my dad’s gene pool. If you need to know the humidity level outside, just check out the curl index on our heads.
As a kid, I didn’t know from hairdos and don’ts. It honestly never crossed my radar. All I cared about was horseback riding and playing outside and reading books.
With adolescence, well, everything changed. I spent less time with riding lessons and more time dreaming about boys. It was the late 60s/early 70s, the era to let it all hang out. I grew my hair long like everyone else. The curls changed into frizz but that was OK. Long frizzy hair was au courant, and I liked to think that my hair resembled Carole King’s on the cover of Tapestry.
But then, my world turned upside down. Frizzy hair was OUT. Straight hair was IN.
And the battle commenced.
I wanted straight hair. I craved straight hair. I would do anything to have straight hair.
I tried giant curlers and orange juice cans, wrapping my wet hair around them and securing them with bobby pins or clips. I slept on all those curlers. In the morning my hair would be straight with bobby pin ridges near the scalp.
The iron came next. Not the flat iron we know today. A real pressing-the-clothes iron. I spread my frizzy locks on the ironing board and got to work. The ends were flattened but the rest was as frizzy as ever. A disaster.
I wrapped my wet hair around my head and taped it, a self-contained turban. In the morning my hair was straight but stuck straight out. Not a good look.
Remember the hair straightening products, like U.N.C.U.R.L. and Curl Free? I thought that this would be the answer to my prayers. The first try didn’t work. So I tried it again. This time, the chemical warfare resulted in straight listless hair for about two days. A week later, I tried another application. My beleaguered locks waved a white flag of surrender and, section by section, broke off and slid disconsolately to the floor.
I ended up with very short hair for a while.
At long last, blow dryers were invented. Finally, something that worked, as long as it was a day with low humidity and I didn’t perspire and didn’t get my hair wet, any of which would cause all the hair blowing effort to have been for naught.
A few summers ago we were without power for about three days. I shampooed my hair at home, covered it with a hat and sneaked into the ladies room as soon as I got to work to blow it dry. One day I was detained and arrived with my hair a curly mop. As I slunk to my office, more than one person greeted me with “You got a perm!”
Nope. Just another bad hair day.
There’s more! Read what other GenFab women have to say about their fashion foibles below.
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You look adorable in all these pictures! And love the barefoot graduation photo!
Mom, you always loved my curly hair! xo
Awww…but I like your curly hair! Possibly because mine has always been stick-straight.
Karen
That’s exactly why, Karen!
I completely remember sleeping with a pony tail on top of my head with 2 giant pink rollers. And that ridge the rubber band made when I woke up in the morning! HA!
So funny! I forgot about that ponytail, but I did that too!
I’m soft and totally not judgmental when it comes to curly :>)
And that’s why we are friends. :)
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Who notices your hair in the short/curly hair stage…not when you’re rocking that bikini! I am a straight haired person who could never get curls. We always envied each other!
So true, Julie! Why is it we are never happy with what we have?
I, too, had the Carole King look when the Marcia Brady was all the rage. I remember my Aunt actually ironing my hair on the ironing board. Hysterical. Great post!
Haha! What we did in the name of beauty …
I agree with your mother.
It’s interesting how many of you Fab women are discussing your hair rather than your wardrobes. You will be in the minority, though, because you never had a bad perm. So you have that going for you.
Also, saddle shoes are cool. I would wear them now.
I guess a bad perm can be agonizing, too.
Love this! A kindred spirit. I have always hated my hair! And permed was the worse!
I thought someday my frizz and I would come to terms. But it hasn’t happened yet!
My hair was straight as a board and I spent thousands of dollars getting perms during the 70’s and 80’s. What were we all thinking???
Why we couldn’t accept our “look” for what it was is an interesting puzzle to contemplate. So many of us were dissatisfied with the status quo!
I love you just the way you are.
I love you, dearest husband.
Another curly girl here. I never did chemicals but I’m so familiar with the orange juice cans and turban set.
How we slept that way is the biggest mystery to me. Ouch!
Sister in curl and frizz, My hair was done when after pressing it on the ironing board the smell of burned hair wafted up! In Hi-School I was the white girl with the black girls going for hair chemically straightened.
Ahhh then you know my agony!
I agree that you look adorable in all these pictures! I was one of the ones with the long straight hair, and I so envied those with wave or curl. My friends were doing the orange juice can thing and of course along came the 80s and I was doing the perm thing! Why is it we seem to want what we don’t have, and find it so much more elegant in others?
I smiled reading this. Funny how certain mentions bring you right back to your youth, even your bedroom as a kid – to the very smell of things, the details like wallpaper patterns, oh… the nights of sleeping on those damnable foam curlers as well!
:)
It’s true that many of us are dissatisfied with our lot, but why our hair figures so prominently, I don’t understand.
My hair is straight as a pin…and i ironed and and used the the can rollers. I remember my mom having family sized peach cans…and I made her serve them so I could use the can that night.
Ah, the things we do in the name of beauty!
How did we sleep on those cans??
Oh I can “totally” relate. I had the big curlers and had my hair chemically straightened to get the kinks out! Love your post!
Thank you! Have you made peace with your curls or are you still at war like I am?
So many things about this took me back. In a good way. I remember sleeping on curlers, but I never needed to resort to juice cans.
I would say something about your very short, frizzy hair, but who can notice that over your ROCKIN’ HOT BODY?!?! You had it going on in that bikini! How cares about the hair? And you could obviously get a tan, damn you! I envy you even now.
Haha! Chloe, you crack me up. The bikinis is as distant a memory as the orange juice cans.
I still put my hair in a ponytail when it’s wet and when I sleep. Otherwise it looks like I took an eggbeater to it. Cute photos!
Thanks! That could be another bloghop … what we look like in the morning … or not!
I too wanted straight hair (don’t we all want what we don’t have?). I didn’t have curly hair as you did but I did live in the heat and humidity of Miami so I tried some of the same remedies, the huge rollers, juice can, including the ironing board—once was enough! Thanks for the memories, and the laughs.
Why is it we aren’t happy with what we have? And surely this relates just to women. I never heard a man complain about his curly hair. Thanks, Darryle.