Hair Reflections

The Hair Crimes, Battles and Aspirations of One Gen Xer

Through every decade and every fad, we are shaped by our hair. Its color, cut and length. As a child I was “strawberry blond,” but by the time I was a mother, a tired brown look was creeping in, so I went through what I called my “Playboy blond” phase even though I had two young children. To regain my youth, I found my lost brightness from a bottle. When I wanted to transition back to a more natural look, in my attempt to calm down my sunshine hair, something went terribly awry.

As I sat in the swivel chair after hours of inhaling suffocating chemicals and pasting deadly goo on my head, I was horrified to see my reflection in the mirror. I saw my future self. I saw what I would look like decades down the road with a dishwater gray as my crowning glory. When I went to pick up Frances from kindergarten that day, she didn’t recognize me at first and then she started crying. You know, like on these silly (somewhat malicious, really) videos where fathers shave their beards and their children react with fear and tears when they see this imposter without their father’s hair.

Recently, my friend told Hugo he has “nineteenth century hair.” First of all, he still has what amounts to a lion’s mane of hair at 62. I see the envy in men’s eyes when they’re talking to him. And they outright will pause in the middle of a boring conversation to remark on his hair. The admiration is real. I now have put aside my favorite moniker, “Hollywood,” that Reba McEntire gave Hugo as her waiter at a mall restaurant during the 1980s in Nashvegas. Now he’s “Heathcliff” with all that swooped back glory.

But I digress. My mother and I have had a “hair battle” my entire life. I don’t know if it’s her generation or what. Let me give you an example: I go to the beauty parlor (yes, I still call it that thanks to her weekly trips way back in the time machine to get her jaunty short cut transformed into a bouffant and lacquered with ozone killer). Anyway, I go do my usual do. A respectable dash of highlights and a cut to frame my face with shorter strands of hair.

After my salon saga, I sit down to visit my mother on her blue futon sofa where she watches Judge Judy every afternoon with her monthly subscriptions of Japanese snacks nearby, and she looks at me and says, “I have noticed all the women newscasters have the same haircut.” Then she goes on to describe exactly my haircut and how much she dislikes it. I don’t say a word. I know how much she hates long hair because she has told me a million times. But why is it such an affront? I mean it certainly can be a beauty trap. The time and cost of maintaining your hair can be oppressive. In that regard, short hair can be liberating but don’t be fooled. Making a bob look good can mean a lot of styling time.

You see about second grade she had my long hair cut short and until high school when I had more say so over my hair destiny, I had godawful short hair and was mistaken for a boy all the time. I mean constantly. In fact, another young friend saw a picture of me as a young thing and said, “oh, you were an early adopter of the androgynous look.”

Now this was way before gender fluidity and all that and that little girl in the picture wanted to be seen as a girl! The Breck Girl to be specific. Or Farah Fawcett. Now why is it that certain hairstyles only look good on the famous athlete (Dorothy Hamill) or famous actresses (Jennifer Anniston)? The rest of us look like posers. But then we all know I wasn’t the only hair tragedy at the time. There’s a whole generation who had the “Golden Girls” look at 12, who are still dealing with their collective hair trauma.

If you haven’t seen the posts on Instagram about why Gen X women won’t cut their hair, you must.

I have one friend who grew up in a one of those strange 70s religious cults. Her family viewed her exuberant, long hair as wicked. Maybe a symbol of a female force to be reckoned with. Who knows. At the same time, we have all seen those “be sweet, pray and obey” cults that won’t let women cut their hair and instead insist on the unsettling “Church of God” hairdos.

At one point, we even wore these weird bi-level mullets. A tragic mistake for all involved. When I was in college a hairdresser told me because I was busty (too much late-night pizza and beer at Cooter Browns), I could get away with this “Flock of Seagulls” cut where one side of my head was shaved. For the record, I could NOT get away with it, and the truth is, I’ve committed some of the most egregious hair follies to myself.

Now my hair is going gray around my face and that’s called a “money piece” that people will actually pay to create. And what I see during my wise woman phase (ha ha) is women grappling with letting it go all gray or not and whether to cut it or keep it long. With longer hair, I do worry I might look like a witch sometimes, but as far as hair history, I have had my hair every length and style and made every mistake from giving myself a poodle perm from a box during the 1980s to you name it.

Through the decades, our hair styles reflect our becoming. We cut it, color it, grow it out, hide behind it and even mourn it. My mother’s generation wore their hair one way. Gen X vowed we never would. As we tinker with our hair, we are in constant conversation with ourselves about our identity, femininity, freedom, and aging as we choose to frame how the world views us over time through our hairstyles.

I would love to hear any crimes against your hair you’ve experienced or how your hair has shaped your identity in a positive way!

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