Hair Today, Where Tomorrow?

My hair. I’ve been obsessed with it all my life.

My mother told me that when I was born I had no hair. And I didn’t have much hair until I was two years of age. Even then it was not at all pretty, like my cousins who had flaxen waves and golden eyelashes.

Sure, I may have had enough hair. Unfortunately, it did not behave as I would have liked. As I grew taller, my hair grew even straighter, was ugly brown, and fell around my face like lumps of wet cattails.

(Here I am at age 10, forcing myself to smile for the camera.)

My mother attempted to make me prettier by giving me a home permanent. However, she didn’t always read the directions carefully, and one year she forgot the step wherein she would apply something called a “neutralizer” that would stop the curling process. The result? I had hair that looked like a steel wool mesh scrubber.

(I’d show you a photo of me after the perm, but I burned it.)

As an adult, I found professional hairdressers who could curl my hair with permanent waves and curling irons. When I had to admit, finally, that I had reached that time in my lifespan that society politely calls “middle age,” I threw away my corset, declared my independence, and tinted my hair red – the ultimate declaration of freedom.

(I gotta be me – I’m a redhead and I always will be!)

Alas and alack! I moved on in years and my body found other use for my hair. The good news was – I no longer had to worry about shaving my legs and underarms, or plucking my eyebrows, or coating my eyelashes with mascara. Hair was no longer growing anywhere on my body, at least not in the usual places. The sad news was – I now had a beard.

Yes, it is true, ladies. After you have reached the age of Medicare and your youthful vigor has left you “high and dry,” your hair often follows. However, just to add insult to injury, it may decide to take root in other parts of your body. There may come a day when you are applying make-up and you see something glimmer under your jaw. You grab the handy magnifying glass and find, to your horror, one lone grey hair growing an inch below your chin.

The problem is solved quickly with a tweezer and a quick pluck. However, before you can say, “Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin,” you find yourself with one of those tiny electric razors in hand and mowing what seems like a field of grey and brown hairs on chin and throat.

Ironically, at the same time that you’re celebrating your pristine legs, underarms, and “other places,” your hairdresser is struggling to find enough hairs on your head to wrap around a curler.

The obvious solution? A wig. And there are some lovely ones that look very natural. And some that the Wicked Witch of the Southwest wouldn’t be caught dead wearing.