Musings About my Hair
Dec. 2nd, 2006 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cl0ckw0rkf0xI'm growing my hair out. I've been working on this for about three years now. Since I got home from australia.
Ok, this ended up long, I'll put in an lj cut
I was born with black hair, which grew out sunshine blonde. My mom said I looked like a sheepdog for a while, cause I had blonde hair with black tips. It's slowly darkened as I got older, and it's now a dark chocolate brown.
I had long hair when I was little; halfway down my back by the time I'd reached junior high. Then I decided to make a change, and cut it about shoulder length. Then I decided to shock everyone and got a pixie cut. I looked like a boy. But it shocked everyone. My mom liked it, my dad hated it. Most guys like long hair. I got bored with it quickly, and started growing it out.
Then I started dying it. I got it highlighted red. By then it was getting longer again, and my mom talked me into getting a spiral perm. Which was cool. It was different.
It was hard on my hair though, and soon enough I chopped it off again. Not as short, just to a shag length. And dyed it red. Copper penny red. When that faded, I dyed it a lighter shade of brown.
I let it grow out some more, then got bored again, and dyed it that blue black, with a strawberry red streak in my bangs. It didn't look that good, and after a month or so, I dyed it back brown again, but left the streak in, which had faded to bleached blonde.
At that point I moved to australia, and decided to chop it again, because it was so badly damaged from bleaching and dyeing. I kept it that length for a while, trying to get rid of the damaged length, until I came home to canada again. Then i resolved never to dye or perm or otherwise chemically process my hair again, and started growing it out full force.
Now, hairdressers as a whole don't understand the concept of "I'm growing my hair out, just take off about a centimetre." One gave me the excuse that she didn't know metric. On the whole, they like to make big dramatic changes in your look, which inevitably involves cutting more than you bloody well want them to.
Which has made the growth of my hair a little slower. But perhaps it's just as well, because there was still some damaged length to it yet. I stuck with my favourite hairdresser, Somsy, in my home town, for the longest time, cause no one cut my hair as well as he did. DID.
He moved to BC. Bastard. I haven't found anyone as good, and after one horrible haircut, where the girl did the opposite of everything I told her to do, I'm scared to go looking.
The girls at the U of M hair dressing place are good. I've had a couple of them cut my hair now, and I know they won't bugger it up, even if it'll never be as good as somsy. I've taken to trimming my bangs myself, because no one can do it right, but I remember how he did it, and I've got it down pretty good, so i can get just that little bit to escape when my hair's pulled back.
And hair products. I've sworn off anything with alcohol in it. I've also made another valuable discovery. "Clairifying" shampoo is not for oily hair. Neither is shampoo labelled for oily hair. These shapoos hare designed to clean the exess oil from your hair. Now, your scalp adapts to how much oil it needs to produce, and if you're stripping your hair of those oils, it just goes into overdrive to produce more. It takes approximately a month for it to adapt one way or another. I now use baby shampoo. For the first few weeks, my hair felt a little greasy, but now it's fine.
I've used leave in conditioner for a long time. Herbal essences is my favourite, but it's insanely difficult to find. I only know of one place, and that's back in my home town. I don't think I'll be using it anymore at all, though. I bought this "citre shine" stuff. It's only supposed to be for making your hair shine, but I quickly realised that it did a better job than the leave in conditioner, cause the leave in conditioner always took a long time to soak in. Or maybe it didn't do anything and it was just the natural oils coming back. This stuff didn't have alcohol like most shine serums, just some kind of oil.
I was looking around the internet for tips and found the suggestion to use jojoba oil as a leave in conditioner. So I figured I'd try that, just poured it in the citre shine's spray bottle, along with a bit of perfume from the body shop. Strawberry. Nathan loves strawberry. Works just as good or better. No frizz, no static, even now that we're into the dry winter months.
I'm enjoying it being long and healthy again. It's feminine. I feel pretty. Some people say women hide behind long hair, but I think these days women often feel like they have to have short hair to be taken seriously in a working environment, because long hair has been a mark of femininity since the time of the romans, when the men cut their hair short so it wouldn't be a liability in battle. It's a vanity, and perhaps thus, not taken seriously. Or at least women feel like they won't be taken seriously.
And it's a little harder to take care of, so there again, it's a vanity. I've heard lots, the first thing a woman does after she gets married, is chop off her hair, because it's too much work. And the husbands are disappointed, because again, most guys like long hair on women. They like women who are feminine, and are proud of their femininity.
But perhaps that can be broadened. Guys, at least any guy I would bother giving the time of day, seem attracted to women who carry themselves with confidence, and are happy with who they are, dislaying the symbols of what they are with pride, be that anything from symbols of femininity, to religios symbols.
But they don't tend to like women who are overly aggressive, because that infringes on their own masculinity. While they don't usually feel the need to be aggressive themselves (and again, I'm talking about guys that I would date) they don't want to feel like they're being bossed around by their woman. And it's just as important for a man to feel like a man, as it is for a woman to feel like a woman.
There are differences between men and women, whatever the bra burners might say. The stereotypes shouldn't be rules, but they are there and they persist because they are based in some truth. I don't believe women should have to be like men to be treated equally. They should be respected for what they are, and men should be respected for what they are as well.
Hmm. This got all off topic, sort of. I will end my rambling musings.
Ok, this ended up long, I'll put in an lj cut
I was born with black hair, which grew out sunshine blonde. My mom said I looked like a sheepdog for a while, cause I had blonde hair with black tips. It's slowly darkened as I got older, and it's now a dark chocolate brown.
I had long hair when I was little; halfway down my back by the time I'd reached junior high. Then I decided to make a change, and cut it about shoulder length. Then I decided to shock everyone and got a pixie cut. I looked like a boy. But it shocked everyone. My mom liked it, my dad hated it. Most guys like long hair. I got bored with it quickly, and started growing it out.
Then I started dying it. I got it highlighted red. By then it was getting longer again, and my mom talked me into getting a spiral perm. Which was cool. It was different.
It was hard on my hair though, and soon enough I chopped it off again. Not as short, just to a shag length. And dyed it red. Copper penny red. When that faded, I dyed it a lighter shade of brown.
I let it grow out some more, then got bored again, and dyed it that blue black, with a strawberry red streak in my bangs. It didn't look that good, and after a month or so, I dyed it back brown again, but left the streak in, which had faded to bleached blonde.
At that point I moved to australia, and decided to chop it again, because it was so badly damaged from bleaching and dyeing. I kept it that length for a while, trying to get rid of the damaged length, until I came home to canada again. Then i resolved never to dye or perm or otherwise chemically process my hair again, and started growing it out full force.
Now, hairdressers as a whole don't understand the concept of "I'm growing my hair out, just take off about a centimetre." One gave me the excuse that she didn't know metric. On the whole, they like to make big dramatic changes in your look, which inevitably involves cutting more than you bloody well want them to.
Which has made the growth of my hair a little slower. But perhaps it's just as well, because there was still some damaged length to it yet. I stuck with my favourite hairdresser, Somsy, in my home town, for the longest time, cause no one cut my hair as well as he did. DID.
He moved to BC. Bastard. I haven't found anyone as good, and after one horrible haircut, where the girl did the opposite of everything I told her to do, I'm scared to go looking.
The girls at the U of M hair dressing place are good. I've had a couple of them cut my hair now, and I know they won't bugger it up, even if it'll never be as good as somsy. I've taken to trimming my bangs myself, because no one can do it right, but I remember how he did it, and I've got it down pretty good, so i can get just that little bit to escape when my hair's pulled back.
And hair products. I've sworn off anything with alcohol in it. I've also made another valuable discovery. "Clairifying" shampoo is not for oily hair. Neither is shampoo labelled for oily hair. These shapoos hare designed to clean the exess oil from your hair. Now, your scalp adapts to how much oil it needs to produce, and if you're stripping your hair of those oils, it just goes into overdrive to produce more. It takes approximately a month for it to adapt one way or another. I now use baby shampoo. For the first few weeks, my hair felt a little greasy, but now it's fine.
I've used leave in conditioner for a long time. Herbal essences is my favourite, but it's insanely difficult to find. I only know of one place, and that's back in my home town. I don't think I'll be using it anymore at all, though. I bought this "citre shine" stuff. It's only supposed to be for making your hair shine, but I quickly realised that it did a better job than the leave in conditioner, cause the leave in conditioner always took a long time to soak in. Or maybe it didn't do anything and it was just the natural oils coming back. This stuff didn't have alcohol like most shine serums, just some kind of oil.
I was looking around the internet for tips and found the suggestion to use jojoba oil as a leave in conditioner. So I figured I'd try that, just poured it in the citre shine's spray bottle, along with a bit of perfume from the body shop. Strawberry. Nathan loves strawberry. Works just as good or better. No frizz, no static, even now that we're into the dry winter months.
I'm enjoying it being long and healthy again. It's feminine. I feel pretty. Some people say women hide behind long hair, but I think these days women often feel like they have to have short hair to be taken seriously in a working environment, because long hair has been a mark of femininity since the time of the romans, when the men cut their hair short so it wouldn't be a liability in battle. It's a vanity, and perhaps thus, not taken seriously. Or at least women feel like they won't be taken seriously.
And it's a little harder to take care of, so there again, it's a vanity. I've heard lots, the first thing a woman does after she gets married, is chop off her hair, because it's too much work. And the husbands are disappointed, because again, most guys like long hair on women. They like women who are feminine, and are proud of their femininity.
But perhaps that can be broadened. Guys, at least any guy I would bother giving the time of day, seem attracted to women who carry themselves with confidence, and are happy with who they are, dislaying the symbols of what they are with pride, be that anything from symbols of femininity, to religios symbols.
But they don't tend to like women who are overly aggressive, because that infringes on their own masculinity. While they don't usually feel the need to be aggressive themselves (and again, I'm talking about guys that I would date) they don't want to feel like they're being bossed around by their woman. And it's just as important for a man to feel like a man, as it is for a woman to feel like a woman.
There are differences between men and women, whatever the bra burners might say. The stereotypes shouldn't be rules, but they are there and they persist because they are based in some truth. I don't believe women should have to be like men to be treated equally. They should be respected for what they are, and men should be respected for what they are as well.
Hmm. This got all off topic, sort of. I will end my rambling musings.
