After months of quarantine and despite a decision to grow my hair longer, I finally ventured out to a hairdresser. In my head I constructed a complicated algorithm of risk versus reward and was fed up with looking scary in the mirror, especially in the morning when I look like a Who from Whoville. I wanted layers to tame my hedge thick hair but didn’t want all the length off. I searched Google and discovered a Modern Mullet, a little less frumpy than a Shag (which is quickie sex in the UK but a hairstyle in the US). Somehow I thought that, with some fairy magic, I could be transformed into mirror images of Scarlett Johanssonn or Miley Cyrus, both of whom experimented with a Modern Mullet. I didn’t take into account that my hair is the wrong texture and I am 60 years old. Maybe they regretted it too?
Halfway through, I could see this was going to be a disaster and remembered a similar sinking feeling in Cairo when I went to the local hairdresser in 2003. Her special skill was making my frizzy hair look like a pyramid. The title of this blog tells you everything about my hair. This time in our 2020 crazy world, I drove straight home, dropped my clothes in the washer before running naked into the shower, futilely trying to wash away any virus, dodgy haircut and lack of good judgment . My hair looked a little better with the product washed out but it still looked like a bad 70’s mullet – all business at the front; party at the back. Teddy’s face was a picture… I managed not to cry because it’s just a bloody haircut and of no importance in a ‘these difficult times’. Later, I howled with laughter about my predicament and regaled Teddy with the tales of bad haircuts – some of which he was there for.
The first bad haircut that I recall was in the mid 70’s when my friend and I decided on a whim (bad idea) to go to the local hairdresser for a cheap trim. My hair was already short and layered but I came out looking like someone from an internment camp with lice. My friend’s bangs/fringe was cut at a sharp diagonal, almost as though she had stolen a protractor from our school bags. Oh, how we laughed… It was even more hysterical because misery loves company. Think of how much worse it would have been if one haircut was good?? At a later date, I colored the hair of the long suffering friend. It was supposed to be Blonde but it was really Ginger. You would think I have learned a lesson but I did the same to an American friend a few years ago. I bet you don’t have friends who are that trusting???
The second really bad cut was in our local town in Aberdeenshire (always go to the big city salon). Astonishingly, she was trained at the same place as the Egyptian hairdresser and this time I had a slightly shorter but just as wide pyramid with fringe/bangs. The third disaster, a few years later, was a good cut, at least. My hairdresser had some new product that enabled her to blow dry my hair into glorious straight locks – I was so delighted! It was smirring (light rain) in Aberdeen and as we walked out into the night my hair transformed. Ringlets appeared one by one until my head was covered in a riot of curls – more than usual. Teddy was with me and was fascinated by the alchemy of my hair. We laughed then, too…
My hair has always been a family problem. Nana and my mum battled with my hair for years. I even had a special treatment called ‘Toddle locks’ that helped tease out the knots. They weren’t used to my alien, thick, coarse Hispanic hair. When I was 13 years old my mum admitted defeat said “Brush it yourself!” I did brush it but ignored the matting birds nest underneath. Finally she discovered it and marched me off to the nearest hairdresser. They spent hours painfully combing out the mat and had to cut some of it out. I was so ashamed that I think that is the first time I have told that story. She let me cut it short after that…
To be honest, I thought I was beyond bad haircuts at my venerable age but apparently you are never too old to look like an ass. I am going to wear my Mullet like a hair shirt and contemplate my vanity. Thank goodness for baseball caps…
PS – In case you are wondering, there is no perm involved – that is my natural hair texture. More of an entity, really.
Postcards from Kerry 