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My life in hair

Janet Carr

It struck me today that our hair really defines different times in our lives. In South Africa boys have to have their hair cut short for school and then when we had conscription they had to have it cut  even shorter in the military. Just as they were able to grow it, many of them started losing it.

For women (and increasingly men nowadays – yay for the liberation of the sexes. Why should bad hair colour and haircuts happen only to women?) the road to maturity is paved with bad hairstyles, awful color, poodle perms (oh no the 80’s!). For some of us it means being trapped in the decade when you had the best haircut. If you think of Farrah Fawcett, Jennifer Aniston or Diana (the Princess of Wales) you think of hair. They say that the series ‘Felicity’ lost all its ratings when Keri Russell cut her hair…

I thought I would take a trip down memory lane this evening and show you my life in hair.

Here am I very small with blonde straight hair. My mother had curly red hair and my father had curly black hair. We will ignore the cigarette that was always in her hand and the lack of sunscreen by saying ‘hey this was the 60s!’
Holding a lion. Still straight but darker now that I am older
Bawling at the creepy Santa Claus – a few rogue curls starting to creep in there
A chubby pre-teen now more curly, with a crooked fringe cut by my mother and attempting a Bowie cut. Mullets do not look rocky and cool on curlies!
Seventies flicks

 

Seventies flicks in abundance
Seventies curls
Natural colour and brushed
Eighties curls as a student with natural color
No that is not a cat on my head – it is the baddest hair day ever. Graduation – straightened my hair with an iron on the ironing board and it rained. this was pre-hair products. Captured for posterity even though it was NOT a Kodak moment.
Crew cut in the USA circa 1984
Bleached and straight in the 90s
Bleached and curly – 90s
Bleached and curly in the 90s
Bleached and curly 1994. Mmm, sensing a pattern here.
Wedding day Dublin Ireland – rainy but a good hair day because I had discovered hair products! Pity about the groom’s expression….
Very bleached and long on my 40th birthday. Had just rolled out of bed without combing it
Short blonde and curly 1990s
Morticia Addams. And this was on my security card at work!
Red and curly – 90s
Red and curly in the 90s. As if the bad pants could detract from the bad hair…
Back to natural color 2005
Straight and natural
Long and curly 2011
50th birthday – straight and natural
Straight and natural 2011
Straightened and a pontytail as I am bungying
Curly and natural 2012
Straight and natural 2012 – pardon the stern expression
Last week

I wash it twice a week with Redken (All Soft or Luscious Curls) bought cheaply from Lookfantastic.com, or Anti Age shampoo and mask by Yves Rocher. I put Sebastian Potion 9 on it then leave it to dry naturally or now and then straighten it with ghd straighteners. If I use another product it is Kerastase Elixir Ultime. If it is curly I don’t brush or fiddle with it after it has dried.

Writing this has made me realise that I have had the same haircut since my crew cut in the 1980s. It is hard to be innovative with curly hair without looking like a thatched hut or a sheep. I once went to the hairdresser with a pic of Lady Di (yes I am that old!) and he said to me ‘Madam I may be a fairy, but this comb is not a wand’ so after that I learned to work with my hair instead of against it.

And a few more:

I loved this hair clip but people told me it looked like a bat sitting on my head. In hindsight it very much did!
Tied back in a bun
curly plaits at school
tied up
loose and natural

 

 

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