MetaHair September 26, 2018 12:28 PM   Subscribe

It's the middle of the week, let's shake things up a bit. Tell me about your hair. Maybe you're losing it, maybe you have a lot of it, maybe you just got it cut, maybe you're shaving it, or growing it out. It's maybe on your head, your face, your legs, your chest, your back, or not. Do you like your hair? Has it changed recently? Do you have some hair-related memories from your childhood? Let's talk about hair and break up the week and avoid politics. Tell me about your hair.
posted by Fizz to MetaFilter-Related at 12:28 PM (186 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite

Right, I'mma fall on this grenade right away to get it over with:

My hair as a child was naturally baby-fine and very straight. In an effort to "give it body" when I was in Junior High, it was decreed that I could get perms. However - getting a perm in the early 1980s was kind of an all-or-nothing prospect, with no middle ground between "stick straight" and "Little Orphan Annie". And then it would just all relax out over the course of three months. So all throughout Junior high I would just periodically turn up to school looking like I'd stuck my finger in a socket.

....My hair currently has a bit of a wave and keeping it up just requires bimonthly haircuts and a curling iron to touch things up, fortunately.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:32 PM on September 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


I don't feel particularly like talking about my hair (though I do love it), but here's something relevant: "The scent of sandalwood may cure baldness according to a new study"
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 12:34 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm a middle-aged man and I just got a new hairstyle. (My folk are not known for making changes in this area.)

I'm calling it the Shoney's Big Boy. (reference)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:47 PM on September 26, 2018 [22 favorites]


My hair is black and thick and flyaway. I don't blow-dry it (wear it to work wet, luckily coworkers don't care), because it would literally take more than an hour. I can't do anything with it except keep it in a ponytail or headband, because as soon as I brush it out of my face it will come back again, and putting product on it is an exercise in watching the product fight with the hair.

It's also greying; when I was starting to get grey hairs in college, my male friends would cheerfully lean over and pluck them out.
posted by Melismata at 12:48 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


I totally got a third of the length of mine cut off yesterday. It's getting coloured tomorrow.

Mine used to be stick-straight and a nice coppery red. When I was about 30, it started going brown and wavy. Hormones!

I have no real idea what the natural colour is now - light brown with a bit of grey is my best guess. But I have been colouring it back to coppery red for nine years now and don't have any desire to stop.

(I also have PCOS and thus some odd hair I do not want; I remove that. Grateful that THAT stuff stayed pale red.)
posted by wellred at 12:51 PM on September 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


I have compensated for the absence of head hair with an abundance of beard, and my nieces and nephews have declared the settlement a success.
posted by StephenF at 12:51 PM on September 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


My stupid hair is straight on top and curly underneath, meaning either I have to straighten the bottom or curl the top to look pulled together.

I stopped dying it a year ago and am seeing my natural color for the first time since I was 16. It's the lazy lady's balayage.
posted by kimberussell at 12:52 PM on September 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


I have a long, fraught, highly emotional and adversarial relationship with this stuff at the top of my body. You know that Shakespeare sonnet that goes, "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head?" At least somebody gets it. Every time I hear another white woman complain about straightening her hair, I grind away another layer of enamel over every tonsorial choice I've never had because my hair points straight to the Earth's core like it's possessed or dowsing for water.

And from my father's side of the family (none of whom I have had any contact with since childhood, so why do I have to put up with their damn DNA, grar) I get the premature graying. They all go completely gray by their mud-thirties. My great-grandfather's Army draft papers say, Age: 20, Hair: Gray. When I lost my hair to chemo 13 years ago, it came back in salt-and-pepper. Well, fuck that, I've been dyeing it ever since.

Fast-forward to now. I'm too tired to color it myself and too poor to have someone else do it. I've been letting it grow for a year because A. too tired to cut it myself and too poor to have someone else do it, and B I keep doing period-costume shows where it's easier to put it up than style a hairpiece. So it's been hanging in my way through all this hot, sticky weather unless I put it up to hide my split ends and gray roots. Which, too tired, etc. Plus, I've gained weight over the past year and I'm worried about short, straight hair not balancing out my fat face.

(Thanks for the venting space; this feels a bit too frivolous for the Fucking Fuck thread, but fucking fuck.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:59 PM on September 26, 2018 [11 favorites]


I've got thick, wavy/curly auburn hair that took me approximately 22 years to get comfortable with.

My mother, despite having hair of a similar texture, didn't really know how to take care of it (she keeps hers pretty short, and has for many years). So my childhood was spent (1) getting really bad haircuts from the hairdresser she's always gone to that doesn't know how to cut curly hair *at all*, (2) avoiding getting my hair brushed, due to some fun cycles of "I have tangles so getting my hair brushed hurts so I'm not going to brush my hair so I have tangles...", and (3) using shampoo and conditioner that just stripped my hair and dried everything out.

I took some steps in high school that helped, but it really took me leaving home for college, alongside the internet and the curly hair acceptance movement, to get it manageable and looking wavy/curly instead of a frizzy mess, and to start getting cuts that worked with my curls.

So, I've basically had a solid 8 years now of good relationship with my hair, and now the grays are starting to creep in, leading to a new existential crisis of "Will I still get to claim that yes, this is my real hair color if I decide to start dyeing it?" alongside "Wait, am I still a redhead if I decide to go gray?".
posted by damayanti at 1:07 PM on September 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


My hair has been through a lot.

My timehop this morning reminded me that this was exactly a year ago (and five years ago).
I spent all last summer dyeing it a bunch of colors. (Notable pic.)
Then shaved it all off when I got tired of my hair feeling c r i s p.
Let it grow out a bit, then put a mohawk in for my birthday but somehow only managed to take one crap pic.
Then it just grew out with abandon for 6 months until I got bored and shaved my head again.
And now it's back to just growing.

I don't know what I'm going to do to it next.
posted by phunniemee at 1:09 PM on September 26, 2018 [19 favorites]


I don't blow-dry it (wear it to work wet, luckily coworkers don't care), because it would literally take more than an hour.

Same here. I wash mine at night, and if it's not too humid out it's dry by morning.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:09 PM on September 26, 2018


Let's broaden this question. How hairy is your arse? I'd say 6 on the plain, 7 in the canyon.
posted by biffa at 1:12 PM on September 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


Oh, and did I mention the cowlicks? No bangs for you, cowlicker!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:12 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm losing my hair on top, it's thinning out. The irony is that I'm now getting more haircuts than when I had more hair on top. Because if it grows out a bit, it only makes my hair loss look more pronounced, and I like it to be neat and so here I am spending more money on less hair. Ah well.

I've recently grown a beard, it's a new thing for me. I'm enjoying it, and my crush seems to as well. Also, I've got a hairy chest. If only I could move some of that up above. Hehe.
posted by Fizz at 1:13 PM on September 26, 2018 [10 favorites]


My timehop this morning reminded me that this was exactly a year ago (and five years ago).

(Er...two years ago and 6 years ago. Time flies.)

posted by phunniemee at 1:18 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Same here. I wash mine at night, and if it's not too humid out it's dry by morning.

You're lucky that works. If I go to sleep with wet hair, the results the next morning are not presentable to the public.

Oh, also: Said thick hair tangling within microseconds + sensitive head = one of my very earliest memories is taking the brush from my mom and saying LET ME BRUSH IT MYSELF! Even today it's a delicate experience. Before I found one of those brushes with the heavy bristles and ball thingies, my hair matted up a couple of times in spots and everyone in summer camp laughed at me because how hard is it to brush hair??
posted by Melismata at 1:21 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


My hair is terrible - wavy, thin, frizzy. Think early Woody Allen, though a better color. About 3 years ago I quit fighting with it and started wearing caps, first some of the time, then most of the time, then any time I'm out of the house. They're hot in the summer, but it's so much easier than fighting with, and losing to, my hair. I get a lot of compliments on the hats too (they're newsboy caps, and I wear pins in them), and from people a lot younger than me.

Tomorrow I'm getting the sides shaved off completely, and may do the rest next. Hats really solve so many problems.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 1:26 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


Five years ago or so, I (mostly cis, mostly female) decided to stop doing anything about my leg hair. In summer, I wear shorts or kilts, so it shows. People will just have to deal.
I do trim my pits though; I go to a water aerobics class and it involves raising your arms, and I have the feeling that full length pit hair would attract unwanted attention and judgement. People are somewhat traditional there. But no one sees my leg hair under water!

I like having leg hair. It makes my legs look slightly more masculine, which suits me. And now that it's completely grown out, it feels soft, not stubbly.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:28 PM on September 26, 2018 [10 favorites]


I have a cowlick in the front that made it impossible for me to create properly "feathered" "wings" in middle school. I hated my hair. Now I do not GAF. I grow it until it's annoyingly long and then get it cut off chin length and save it to send to the one that's not Locks of Love, the other one, because the barber told me Locks of Love charges for the wigs. I have two of these headhanks saved up because I can never remember to look up where I'm supposed to send it. I discovered that it looks exactly the same whether I get it hacked off at the expensive salon or the $20 barber, plus the barber never tries to sell me product, plus it takes about fifteen minutes at the barber, not an hour and a half, so the last three times I've just walked in to the barber shop. Lifehack. Literally.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:29 PM on September 26, 2018


I've had a full beard since I was 16. I have a full head of wavy, dark brown hair that grows very fast. Or at least it used to be dark brown. Now it is a nice mix of brown and gray. More gray than brown, now, but you can still tell what my natural hair color is. The beard still has two wide, dark brown patches running down the sides of my mouth, where a handlebar mustache would be. It almost looks like it was colored as a style choice, but it's natural. I try to keep the hair cut in a nice, short business cut (above the ears and collar), with the beard neatly trimmed, but it grows very fast, so it's a constant battle to keep from looking like a silverback gorilla. I also have to trim my eyebrows every other time I trim my beard, to keep from going full porcupine on passing strangers. At this particular point in time, I look professionally appropriate. But give it a week.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:29 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


What hair? there's no socially acceptable way for a female-presenting person to go bald. I've actually had a hairdresser ask me years ago "Can't you do something about this?" Blaming me for somehow allowing it to happen???

The two concave parts of my widow's peak front hairline now almost meet at the top of my head, leaving a kewpie-doll tuft disconnected from my remaining hair. This tuft will be totally isolated from the main mass of hair in the next couple of years. I have no idea what to call this, when it happened to dad we laughed and called him a unicorn.

I can't do bangs because there's just not enough hair across the front to fall forwards, and pulling it back accentuates the bald spots.

So I've been getting a chin-length bob, keeping it parted on the slightly less bald side and combing over to hide the more bald side, but it doesn't really work anymore because the tuft keeps trying to hang straight down between my eyes - showing off the shiny bald scalp on either side and touching. my. face ARRGGG.

Difficulties: I have major sensory issues if the ends of my hair touch my face at all, scalp allergies to a lot of hair products, major anxiety issues about doing anything like makeup or hair product at all ever, and I get the heebie-jeebies when someone wants me to sit still while they touch my face and/or head.

All I want is a thick luxurious mane of hair I can dye fancy colours and do up in fun ways.

Barring that I want something zero maintenance that no one will ever notice or or think about because it's totally unremarkable.

I needed this rant, I've been contemplating an AskMe for haircut suggestions but I think I have too many issues for that to be productive.
posted by buildmyworld at 1:30 PM on September 26, 2018 [10 favorites]


Fizz, you have a very nice beard. phunniemee, your hair, in all its varying lengths and colors, is also super cool.

Completely bald here, with a shaved head. One of my favorite Dad moves is showing old pictures of my formerly full and lustrous locks to my teenagers, neither of whom remembers me as anything other than totally bald. They find it endearingly weird and improbable that I ever had hair.

I wrote a Metafilter comment once about how people have likened me to various bald celebrities, and how it's pretty much a Rorschach test for how they feel about me. I've continued to find that to be very true.
posted by cheapskatebay at 1:34 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've always been self-conscious about my looks. Save for a year or two post-college when I got into a good groove with exercise, diet, and staving off depression, I've struggled with positive self-image mostly related to my weight.

But I recently grew my hair out, and I love it, and it's glorious. It's down to the base of my neck, and it's wavy and shiny, and it makes me feel good about myself. And my toddler loves to play with it. (Speaking of hair, hers is amazing.)
posted by duffell at 1:38 PM on September 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


I wish that I was someone who had the patience to style my hair. Not that my hair looks so terrible unstyled (very long, straight hair), but that it would be nice to have cute braids or to do some curls. But man, my arms just get tired holding them above my head for so long. And it's not so easy to do good braids on yourself (even just simple french braids). But I'm too lazy.
posted by acidnova at 1:39 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


Cursed with a double crown I often struggled to achieve presentable-looking hair in my youth. In middle age though, it has receded far enough back from the temples and thinned enough front & centre that I've given up doing anything other than keeping it very short, which, frankly, is a relief. I've very little grey in the mix yet. Cultivating a beard or moustache holds no appeal for me, but I do sometimes let my sideburns grow.
posted by misteraitch at 1:43 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


I've been wearing my hair up in a bun since January when a well-intentioned layer cut backfired and I couldn't wear it down anymore due to the aggressive scragginess of it all. Now wearing it down feels super weird.

The bun is fun and so easy! I love having it away from my face. My hair is naturally a sort of Diet Coke color but I stopped dyeing my hair two years ago and the silver is coming in in full force. I have an increasingly shocking white streak above my left temple that launches me into full crone territory at 42 and I freaking love it.
posted by mochapickle at 1:45 PM on September 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


I hate my hair. I have always hated my hair. These days I guess I'm happy I still have some, but I still hate it.

It was goofy as a child and through high school. I mean look at this shit. Seriously, man. Why did they let me out of the house looking like this?

(my sweater game is ON POINT, however)

At some point after high school I managed to get control of it so I was at least not embarrassed by it, but I still hate it. Hate. I usually describe it as "if Bozo the Clown and Larry Fine had a baby." Here it is as of two seconds ago.

I'm probably exaggerating due to a lifetime of insecurity. I do that.

I think a big part of the problem is nobody ever taught me what to do with hair. I never learned how to take care of it, what to do about getting it cut or styled, or anything. No mentors, no parental guidance, no friends that were into that sort of thing, nothing. I guess it's not fair to blame other people for my own air but, whatever, that's what I'm gonna do. Those bastards.

I still go to Supercuts type places and get some random, just-out-of-haircutting-school person to cut my hair, so every month it's a new brand of goofy.

Seriously, if anyone in the Boston area wants to get hired as a hair consultant, hit me up. I don't need to turn into A Flock of Seagulls or Andy Travis or anything but I'd be totally fine with "not so goofy all the damn time."

Thanks for bringing it up.
posted by bondcliff at 1:45 PM on September 26, 2018 [16 favorites]


I have good hair genes. Dark brown, thick, wavy, healthy. Salt and pepper, which I leave natural, except for the ends which vary from hot pink to purple and (currently) rose gold. The gray is a gorgeous silver, which is envied by trendy 20somethings who are all for the Pinterest-worthy dyed silver look. If it ever goes completely gray, it will be the color of Emmylou Harris's hair. I cut it twice a year professionally, and generally leave it a length between chin-length to collar-length, and don't put it up. I blow-dry with a brush and use minimal product, primarily an anti-frizz spray and a light natural oil (currently prefer Shu Uemura's Essence Absolue). The rest of me is falling apart but I have good teeth and hair.
posted by matildaben at 1:51 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


I have a very complicated relationship with my hair, which I was going to get into here through all 4 decades of my life, but I'm emotionally raw today (lack of sleep plus Every Fucking Other Thing), so I'm gonna save that writing prompt for my imaginary livejournal. However, I will connect this thread to a MetaTalk thread earlier in the week about compliments, because last time I got my haircut, my stylist told me that I have a hair color people pay money for, and as far as compliments I've received, it's up there towards the top.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:51 PM on September 26, 2018 [9 favorites]


phunniemee's advice to people with Problem Hair: shave it all off
(it's great, I promise)

It's also really good for your self esteem because when you shave all your hair off people will come to you, unbidden, with assurances that you definitely do not look like a potato, no one is thinking that.
posted by phunniemee at 1:53 PM on September 26, 2018 [12 favorites]


Wow, this thread has triggered a bunch of shit, childhood and otherwise, for lots of people, myself included. Who would have thought?
posted by Melismata at 1:56 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


if I were you, bondcliff, I would take that school picture in to the supercuts and say "make me look like THIS!" I keep clicking on it helplessly. I've never seen anything cuter or more hilarious. And you're right: sweater is excellent.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:58 PM on September 26, 2018 [8 favorites]


1) Up until I was five, I wore my hair long. That year, my family was living in Greece. Apparently, in the mid-70s, Greeks thought that children shouldn't grow their hair long, as it was bad for the hair; occasionally, Orthodox nuns would stop my mother in the street, pat our hair, and say, "What lovely hair! [stern voice] Cut it." (No, I can't repeat that in the original Greek.) Eventually, I asked my mother if I could get it cut, and so I wound up with a pixie, which I kept until...junior high, I think.

2) Round two of long hair lasted until I moved to Chicago for graduate school. After the first year, I started calculating how much time I had to spend combing my hair every day, as it got snarled every time I went outside, behaved badly whenever it got humid, etc., etc., etc. This promptly led to short hair, round two, and so it remains today.

3) I've inherited both parents' early gray genes, although fortunately I didn't quite get my father's turn-forty-and-your-hair-immediately-goes-silver genes. So I'm pretty salt-and-pepper at this point.
posted by thomas j wise at 1:59 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


this thread has triggered a bunch of shit, childhood and otherwise, for lots of people, myself included

Not my intent to trigger anything negative or upsetting, so I apologize to anyone if I've done that. That being said, if this is a place where you feel you need to vent (as some have already done), then I think it's alright. I think we all have our own hangups about appearance/hair. Share them and hopefully it will allow those who are feeling things to process them in their own way. Cheers.
posted by Fizz at 2:02 PM on September 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


If I were you, bondcliff, I would take that school picture in to the supercuts and say "make me look like THIS!"

“Make me look like fourth grader with a bad combover.”
posted by bondcliff at 2:02 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


Currently sporting a dyke bowl cut, and loving it. Not my face, but this cut.

My worst haircut ever was when i was 15 and got a feauxhawk, and my mom made me put on makeup so she could take pitches of my sister and I, and I just look like an uncomfortable butch. I mean, do you see how much blush she put on me? It's terrible.

After I got over being fat, and therefore started putting effort into my appearance, I started presenting super feminine, and grew out my hair unreasonably long. My signature was, for years, an off-center platinum blonde stripe. It is, currently, the only thing I miss about my long hair. I've had many, many different styles since ditching this version of my self, but you can also see that i had the side of my head shaved then - my mother full on wept when I did that. She was very attached to me being feminine. But it doesn't really matter now, she walked out on my sisters and I on christmas like, 4 or 5 years ago. So I'm free to have my bowl cut.

In the interest of vulnerability, here is my actual face, laying in bed, hair not styled, but still very gay.
posted by FirstMateKate at 2:09 PM on September 26, 2018 [16 favorites]


I have super fine, slightly wavy blond hair. I was forever unhappy with my haircare routine which would leave it either brittle and dried out, or greasy and stringy (sometimes both!). No ‘poo was no success, at all.

Only recently have I discovered that Shea Moisture ‘Moisture Retention’ shampoo, formulated for African hair, works really well for me. Looks like hair doesn’t necessarily follow color lines.
posted by The Toad at 2:10 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


OK, here's something I like about my hair - all the hair on my arms and legs has disappeared. Completely. If I still own a razor, I don't know why.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 2:11 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Opinion time: is the joke about the "can I speak to your manager" haircut sexist or nah?

I have excellent hair by nature. It's rich and thick. When I was younger, I was a natural auburn-brunette. Now I'm not going gray yet, I'm just . . . losing color. If I don't dye it, it somehow sucks color out of the atmosphere. The matching Pantone shade would probably be called "A Kid Mixed All the Paint Together."

I've had short hair only twice in my life, once when I was little. It was a lovely, freeing feeling, but now I'm too self-conscious for it. I'm afraid I would look moon-faced. Besides, I'm now a mom age, which means that cutting my hair short means I've given up on . . . something. And I don't want to accidentally end up with the aforementioned entitled-lady haircut. I always wanted to be the kind of older academic woman who had long witchy hair with gray streaks in it, but I'm not there yet, either. Or I don't want to be there --
posted by Countess Elena at 2:13 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I did something crazy with my hair two weeks ago. After 25+ years of a #2 guard on the sides and a #2 or #3 guard on top, I let it grow for two months then only cut it back to a #3 guard on sides and #5 on top.

I know - I'm really out there. A real risk taker :)
posted by COD at 2:14 PM on September 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


A month ago today, I got a haircut for the first time in *checks calendar* 3 years, 6 months, and 2 weeks. Went from a ponytail that reached 2/3s of the way down my back to something a little cleaner.
posted by hanov3r at 2:15 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


My hair is one of my favorite physical things about me - it's long and thick and wavy, and a pleasant brown color. I haven't had a haircut in at least a decade because I hate getting my hair cut. It's starting to grey now and I hope that I go grey like my aunt - she has beautiful thick witchy salt and pepper hair that I've always admired.

I wear my hair up in a messy bun or a braid most days because a) I never learned to do anything else with it and I'm lazy and b) my hair is for me and not for other people's consumption.
posted by darchildre at 2:17 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


damayanti - I am also a redhead. I use cassia obovata to cover my gray/white hair (when I bother). Turns the lighter hair a golden color that blends right in. That way you get to keep as much of your natural color as possible.

I'm a hair weirdo in that I haven't used shampoo for more than 7 years. I also recently started cutting my own hair and wish I'd done that ages ago.
posted by slipthought at 2:18 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I did a bunch of work in the garden and I have been growing out my hair and the result was kinda mad scientist hair? Like my hair doesn't listen to me and in school it was affectionately referred to as the lion's mane, and I've largely dodged that as an adult by buzzing it off but now I'm growing it out and it is just a lot. It's not even that long yet! I do like that after the slightest physical exertion it makes me look like i'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in someones photonic resonation chamber.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:19 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


I might also note that a few months ago I became paranoid I was losing my hair because I was shedding -- I seem to go through a worse period of shedding every year. I invested in a couple of scarves and decided to find out what the full Little Edie would look like on me. The answer is grim. Grim is how it would look.

What I would really, truly like is to dye hunter-green streaks into my hair so I always look like I have always emerged from underwater festooned with seaweed, which is how I feel deep inside. But stylists have explained to me that that kind of work would be like having a second job, if it took at all. I'm vain but lazy, which means I live in constant disappointment in this and other matters.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:22 PM on September 26, 2018 [11 favorites]


I have automatic hair. Looks great no matter what. Shower, comb, done. Thick, dark brown, short and wavy with just a fine sprinkle of silver (I’m 60). Often envied. It’s something for which I feel endless gratitude, especially as I’m not fond of mirrors or fussy grooming. Given my fondness for camping, skiing etc. it’s crazy how much time and effort it has saved over the years. Genetically I am far from perfect, but having good hair makes up for a lot.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:41 PM on September 26, 2018 [5 favorites]


My mostly-dark-brown hair has a small spot, front and center, that's been gray/white since high school. I think the spot is starting to thin out. For whatever reason that part of my head is just older than the rest. When my son was a baby, I thought it was kind of funny that for him, that same spot developed more slowly; his fontanelle took forever to close.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:58 PM on September 26, 2018


I cut my own hair, been about 5 years. The men's undercut is what I do. I used to spend $$ on haircuts, but never found out where all the Asian guys around town were getting their ridiculously cool hair.
Last month, I had a friend's wedding so I (wisely?) paid a barbershop in their city $35 for a haircut. My barber was soon bemused and frustrated with cutting my bangs and finally said "Did you try to cut these yourself??" Not sure what I did badly though, and it would have been bad form to ask a professional for technique advice. Weirdly, he later changed saying "Ah I see what you did with the bangs, I like that", etc. That confused me.
I'm due for a trim this weekend and next time I see a cool haircut I'm going to ask them where they got it.
posted by polymodus at 3:39 PM on September 26, 2018


DirtyOldTown, Fizz, hanov3r, you are all looking great.

I recently cut my waist length hair off. I did it two days before I left town for the summer, so I came back a few weeks ago, with a growing-in haircut and people were like "Good haircut!" which, hey it's great. My general joke is "Yes I cut it every five years whether I need it or not" I don't really like the barber experience even though I like the people at the barber shop. I like really short butch haircuts (and they look awesome on me) but I live in rural VT where it's tough to get a man's cut unless you're super clear and get the right barber. Also I don't wan tto get it cut every month or two which is what you have to do. So I just enjoyed it while i had it and now it will grow out for five more years.

When I was a baby my hair was orange like Robin Williams' Popeye and now it's basically brown though I used to get the underfuzz dyed sometimes. I need hair that I can run my wet fingers through or put some glop on and it's basically fine all day. Currently my hair is that. It's thick as hell so when the shortish part was growing out it stuck straight out so I wore my glasses on my head a lot. It mostly looks... neutral which is fine. Recent pic.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 3:47 PM on September 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


Overall I love my hair - I cut and color it myself. Short shaved undercut, layered slightly asymmetrical short bob. Green. Sometimes I wear it wavy. Sometime I wear it pinup. I also discovered that even though it's not a UV color it does react under UV light. You can often catch me in a bandana or hat to go longer between washes. Okay - real talk I have over 50 bandanas. Is that a problem?

I've had a lot of colors, but honestly it feels like the green should just be my natural color. It doesn't feel "Green" it just feels "me". I also wished I had an undercut years ago because I have quite a bit of hair.

Though I just started the mini pill and it's been shedding like crazy lately - please tell me it will stop soon!?! Green hairs are EVERYWHERE!
posted by Crystalinne at 3:50 PM on September 26, 2018 [8 favorites]


Crystalinne are you comic canon Polaris because that do is so cool!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:59 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I had thigh length hair until just after my 21st birthday - a day on which I broke up with my at-the-time boyfriend who went on and on about how much he loved my hair. It's varied from chin to bra strap in length since then, hovering brownishly around my shoulders most of the time. I have low tolerance for getting haircuts, but really want bangs, which is not a winning combination.
posted by ChuraChura at 4:04 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


(some of my hairs are grey and it makes me feel wise and distinguished whenever I find them, except they didn't start appearing until right before I defended my dissertation and I haven't found any new ones since after I got over my last case of malaria, so I think they're just stress grey hairs, not grey hairs denoting wisdom or distinguishedness)
posted by ChuraChura at 4:07 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


I wear my hair in an almost-chin-length bob with an undercut and blonde highlights to cover up the lack of color. As I have aged, it has gotten progressively curlier and now is at the stage where I am routinely stopped in these street and grocery check-out line by women who want the name of my stylist so they can get my curls, only to be disappointed when I tell them it is the result of dumb luck and aging.

I love my hair. I managed to hit upon a cut and length which requires nothing more than a few minutes in a towel and a quick comb in the morning. This suits me just fine as I am incredibly lazy.

And now I am waiting for enough of it to go colorless so I can dye it lavender with a clear conscience.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:09 PM on September 26, 2018


Here to represent the I Hate My Hair team: flat, thin, fine, breaks if you look at it wrong. And just for extra, I’m a sweaty person whose head pretty much melts any kind of product within ten minutes or so.
posted by scratch at 4:09 PM on September 26, 2018


I clippered my all off (less than a cm) which was handy when the sebaceous cyst on the very top of my head burst when I was in hospital for a GI bleed. They put a large dressing on after squeezing (I didn't think you were supposed to do that) but my pillow still got stained with pus and blood, and they ripped hair out when they took it off.
posted by b33j at 4:26 PM on September 26, 2018


I'm bald, and I have a comb I'll never part with.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:59 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


My hair is thin, fine, and curly. I like the curls and have figured out how to manage them so they look nice, but I hate the thinness. The diameter of my ponytail is smaller than the size of most peoples’ pigtails.

My hair grows out brown but has been purple off an on since high school; like Crystalinne says about green, purple just feels like me.

I really hate the feel of hair on my face and neck and usually wear it up (if it’s longer) or pinned back (when it’s bob length). I’ve been seriously considering buzzing it so I don’t have to deal with it at all, but I don’t think I’d want it buzzed forever and I don’t want to deal with growing it out at some point.
posted by insectosaurus at 5:05 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


A couple of years ago I decided to let my hair grow out for a while. When I was a teenager I believed that I would go bald in my twenties, because every male in my mom's family started going bald in their early twenties, so I let my hair grow long then. I never did go bald, inheriting instead my dad's families full head of hair. Since then I had let my hair grow long a few times in my life, nut I had never let it grow as far as my shoulders. This time I decided I'd let it grow really long.

Earlier this summer I realized that I was almost at the point where I could donate my hair to a charity that makes wigs for children who lose their hair. I also noticed that I had a few more gray hairs than I knew about (my dad's family all goes gray quite early) so I decided that it was now or never to donate hair. So I let my hair grow until I could comfortably donate at least twelve inches of hair and still have some hair left. I reached that goal just before I was to be married, so I got my hair cut shortish. The hairdresser cut a great length off my hair at first, which she tied up in such a way that it could be mailed off to the charity.

My three-year-old son was with me, as he was also getting a haircut. Now when he sees pictures of me when I had long hair, which was most of his life, he sometimes starts talking about how he misses my long hair. He used to grip it when he was younger and I was holding him. It makes me a little sad when he says that.

Anyway, if you have long hair and you want to cut it short, consider donating your hair.
posted by Kattullus at 5:07 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have long hair and have for decades. Both a long ponytail and a long beard. I also have chest hair but not a lot. Not quite the furriest of bears. And I'm old so I also have hair on my back. My fuzzy angel wings.

I like hair. I like having hair and I'm attracted to other people who are comfortable with this basic mammalian characteristic. I almost never have my hair out of a braid. It weirds people out. Like it might be too powerful. I just get weirded out because it's too Jesusy.

I'm not getting a lot of grey on my head, and my ponytail isn't anywhere near wispy, so it helps to betray my actual age, but the beard is greying fast, calling into question whether I dye. I don't. For the record. I just happen to have a thick head of hair, which while thinning--especially at the temples--doesn't suck. I like my hair. And I probably like yours.
posted by Stanczyk at 5:14 PM on September 26, 2018


I'm getting a haircut tomorrow. I was trying to grow my hair out for awhile, but realized that I can't stand having hair touch my neck. And after a ponytail gets long enough, it starts needing to be a bun. And what is the point of that even. I think I'm gonna get the back and sides shaved, and the top short enough to not get in my eyes. And I'm very happy about that.
posted by Margalo Epps at 5:27 PM on September 26, 2018


My hair is fine. Not great, not awful. I got it cut last week. The stylist seemed excited about straightening it so I let her, but it prefers to be a little wavy.
posted by obfuscation at 5:29 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I hacked some hair off on the weekend so I hopefully look a little less like a halfassed fifties reenactor with a broken pompadour. I haven’t had my hair cut by a professional in something like 2 decades, not because I think I’m good at it, but because I find the experience of sitting passively while a stranger gets way up in your biz fussing over you to be intensely awkward. Still, people are either very polite or I manage a passable job.
posted by rodlymight at 5:48 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


My hair is naturally light/med brown, fine, thin, and very straight. It's ok. I'm about 5ish months into growing out a pixie I had for 6 years, and am so close! to a real, unassisted by bobby pins ponytail. I took this while reading this thread earlier tonight. I always wanted more curl and body, but my hair is really super easy to take care of, so I'm fine with it. Shoutout to my fellow cowlick havers! Mine is right in front, so bangs are definitely a challenge. My current hair goal is Kim Wexler's ponytail.
posted by Fig at 6:01 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I've been losing my hair since the middle of grad school. Not bald on top yet, but it's coming. I have a beard to compensate to some degree, although I've only grown out a Serious Beard once in the last 14 years, and that was in the ~3 months leading up to my qualifying exam in 2012. Dr Bored For Science may have made me promise not to do that again, so it's usually about 1cm long, which I like.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 6:05 PM on September 26, 2018


For most of my life I had the kind of hair that regularly elicited exclamations of “god, I wish I had your hair” from pretty much every woman I encountered. Female high school teachers would actually run their hands through it (yeah, I know. Creepy as hell, and probably illegal today) My hair was dark brown with deep red highlights, thick and very curly, which relaxed into strong waves as it grew longer. Never had issues with frizz, either.

Today, it’s more of a thinner, unkempt wavy salt-and-pepper.

On the upside, I can now, at 60 years old, finally grow a full beard. Never could when I was younger.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:18 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


When I was like 15 and thinking about doing something distinctive with my hair, I developed a white streak front and center, like Rogue from the X-Men, which satisfied the impulse. I like how it looks, but more than that I like that it prompts unsolicited folk stories from complete strangers, including:

-I may have seen a ghost, which was news to me. I guess they don't always have to spook you to bleach your hair. I wish the ghost had announced itself, I have no good ghost stories.

-I am a changeling, who was left in place of the real Phobos when I was an infant - which is also a much more fun, but much less useful diagnosis for a mild cognitive condition.

-The Evil Eye, which a nice woman at the Hertz Rent-A-Car was at pains to stress she very much did not believe in, but that maybe it was that. She didn't explain what it was, just that it didn't exist, but that it also totally happens sometimes.

-A person at the carnival cornered me at a coke machine and told me that it meant my baptism didn't take, and that the devil still had a hold on me. I think my exact words were "haha awesome," which was not the response they wanted. But really, what response could they possibly have been after?

Now that I'm in my 30s, I'm starting to get bits of white elsewhere. The grey doesn't bother me as a sign of age so much, but I'll be a little sad to lose the contrast in a few years.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 6:39 PM on September 26, 2018 [13 favorites]


I had a thick head of hair for most of my life but it got so thin in the last ten years that I finally gave up and shaved it. I hit it with a razor with a #1 comb at least once a week and it's really kind of great. I don't get hat head or bed head, never have to comb and I don't have to hit Supercuts at all anymore. Here's a shot of my photography teacher discussing a shot of my head projected on the wall from my portrait class last week.

Now if I could just figure out what to do about all the hair growing on my ears ...
posted by octothorpe at 6:52 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


phunniemee's advice to people with Problem Hair: shave it all off
(it's great, I promise)


Y'know, everything else about cancer sucked duck eggs, but I did actually enjoy wearing wigs and scarves for a few months. Got to see what I'd look like with bangs, curls, and religion.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:11 PM on September 26, 2018 [13 favorites]


Since others are sharing, here are some recent hair pix.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:35 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


My hair is currently just a little too long or a little too short. I haven't decided which yet, so a little too short probably wins, because that one will take care of itself. Sadly, I started transition a little too late for it to repair the receded hairline at the corners of my forehead, but luckily that's mostly concealable by hairstyle.

I got some great, helpful advice on it on ask back in March when I was about to come out. I didn't keep the initial curls because they were too much trouble.

Next time, I may go purple.
posted by Tabitha Someday at 7:41 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


I appear to have lucked out in the gene lottery and taken after my dad’s side of the family in the hair department. I have very thick, very dark hair that quickly turns in to the Asian Fro if I don’t keep it trimmed. I used to go a long time between haircuts when I was a kid and people used to tease me that my head looked like a mushroom. I also gained the tendency to go gray early, and every time I go to the barber I see more and more of it.

On the downside, I really can’t grow facial hair. I’m generally ok with it - I don’t really like the feel of a beard, but it would be nice to be able to skip shaving without it looking gross and patchy. I had to grow a mustache for a play a while ago and I ended up looking like a child molestor so that’s never seen a repeat.

My brother got all of my mom’s genes and he’s balding pretty badly. He can grow facial hair, though, so I guess it’s a wash.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:51 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I mostly like my hair: it's thick and wavy. Oddly, I was a Shirley Temple blond until I was about three, and then it settled into a brown so dark everybody said it was black and would argue with me if I said it wasn't (including the DMV). It was hard to handle because nobody seemed to know how to cut wavy thick hair with three cowlicks. And of course, I'm lazy and not interested in doing stuff with my hair.

I once just let it grow (for about three years) and was always annoyed at it hanging about my face (in college I needed three hands to get a drink at a fountain) and it gave me headaches from its weight. It was too thick to braid or ponytail. I mean, you could do it but within 30 minutes it had sprung loose. An alice-band was the only thing that would keep it back but that wasn't so attractive.

So I cut it short (earlobe length) and thought I'd dye it a lovely color. Nope. It wouldn't take any color I tried. So I gave up on that idea. When I moved to Tucson in 1972, I found a cutter who could manage it and the very dry weather seemed to work well with it, and it actually had curls in the back. I loved it. It was still so thick that once, when I was lying next to my lover, he idly rubbed his chest, picking up a hair of mine and couldn't believe how thick it was "omg it feels like rope" because he had baby-fine hair.

Now it's a mishmash of white in front, silver in the middle, and a little salt-pepper at the very back. And it's much straighter than it's ever been before. And I have a decent hair-cutter. So all is well.
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:56 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have really long, wild curls like a brown haired Merida. I actually just posted a selfie on Twitter today.

I've never been to the same stylist twice and it's been over a year since my last haircut.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 8:13 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


MY HAIR? GRRRRRR. MAKE IT STOP ALREADY.

I have very nice hair on my head, tho, and love the color of it, even the grey and silver. Right now I'm doing no-shampoo for a while and it hates me and lives under a hat, which is fine.

It's not uncommon I show up at a social function pm a good hair day and good friends are like "OMG lemme pet your hair I'm so jealous."

My main complaint is I wish I could dye it or lift it for fun colors, but my hair just can't bleach/lift, and at best I can just get tiny undertones of some other color mixed with deep dark brown-chestnut-red, like how a lot of black dyes are actually red - that's like my natural hair color, so brown-red-chestnut it's almost black. Like I've tried dying it purple and you can barely tell it's dyed. It still just looks brown-black unless it's blazing in the full sun and then it'll be bright reddish chestnut with a hint of purple.

I was seeing a very high end pro stylist for a while and even she tried only once and gave up and told me to never try lifting/bleaching it again because it'd be pointless. It basically just gets bright carrot/puke orange, not even close to blonde/white suitable for dying fun colors, and my hair basically hated being bleached like it was 90% pigment and fell apart without the pigment.

My hair is so thick that in line of being some kind of speakeasy/raver bouncer long ago I've had drunken morons try to grab my long hair, like it's going to bother me that much. It actually would help me carry them right out the front door. Hang on tight, buddy, we're going out the front door nice and easy. You'll get your arm back when I get my hair back and we're both outside, ok? Ok.
posted by loquacious at 8:17 PM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]


At 51, I am just happy to still be on the team
posted by thelonius at 8:37 PM on September 26, 2018 [6 favorites]


Count me (40s Male) as yet another person involved in a lifelong, weird, complicated relationship with their hair. Had it long and ridiculously thick all my life, even as a kid. Am mentally welded to the concept of the Event Haircut, once in a blue moon going from butt length to incredibly short or none. I'm better than I used to be, the joke with my friends was that one of them always had to get married for me to get a nice haircut, but that was one of the ways I liked to commemorate and participate in the event, by looking good even if I didn't feel entirely like myself. More recent years I've kept my hair shorter and more sensible, but I'll never, ever be a "trim once every three weeks" sort of person.

Been a while since I last had it cut (six months), partly because I left it longer than I meant to and then found myself in the "Fuck it, let's do this!" zone. Got enough for a Jacob Marley pigtail. Gonna have to go soon though, I'm receding sufficiently that I can't really do anything with my hair that I might want to anyhow.

I usually go for a haircut (any haircut!) that's smart but shorter than I'm comfortable with, on the grounds that I can't quite trust my judgement on the subject, plus I don't have the language to describe nor patience for wrangling something else. It always looks good once I get it home, but it never quite feels like me. Until I let it grow a bit wild and woolly anyway.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 8:50 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


L'Oreal Reddish Blonde is my jam
posted by soakimbo at 9:20 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


I tried sticking with the same brand and shade of color for a while, but mostly I just get whatever medium to dark brown box of dye that I find on clearance or on sale, or with a good coupon.

I used to have a regular stylist who was so good I could just say, "Surprise me," zone out for an hour, and come to looking like my version of a million bucks. But then she moved across country to get married. Still miss her.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:47 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


My hair is very thick, coarse and wavy, curly, frizzy. It was waist length when I was in high school. I've had it as short as a buzzcut. Used to be black, the gray hairs started at about 16, and by late 50s it was pretty much white. When I lived for a little while in a desert climate, it was so much easier - I could use a comb, it took seconds to braid. Back in Maine, long hair takes less trouble some of the time - I can do a French braid in 2 minutes, or pin it up nicely in 5. It takes longer to wash, much longer to dry. I am seriously considering a streak of royal blue. I'm lucky, my hair may be medusa-like at times, but it's healthy and generally can be persuaded to look good.

My Mom and sisters always bugged me to color it, but dyed black hair requires maintenance because the skunk stripe is nope, and what other color would feel like me?

My Mom loved that my hair was naturally curly, and when I was young, would fill the bathroom sink with hot water and make me lean over it so the steam would curl my hair. In reality, it was gonna curl no matter what.
posted by theora55 at 9:49 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


My hair is thick - each individual strand is thick, and there are a lot of strands - and not totally straight. Sometimes I wish I had straight thinner hair (and also a straighter, thinner body) like the other Chinese girls, but then those girls tell me I have a great butt and marvel at how my hair always has body and volume, so I'm ok with it.

It's been somewhere between 'short ponytail' and 'two-coil bun' for ...maybe my entire life? I used to go across town to get it cut, and I spent a while looking for a haircutter that 'understood' my hair, but recently I've just been going to the Aveda salon nearby because it's like, a 10 minute walk, and because they give head massages during the shampoo. It's almost like the haircut is the side benefit and the head massage is what I'm really there for, and the fact that it costs a little more is counteracted by the ease of transport, and by that I only go twice a year.

For a while I managed to get somewhat defined curls, which was ok, but I like tying my hair back too much for that to matter, so now I encourage it to be sleek. Sometimes I braid it, and I've had a lot of fun with spin pins, as normal bobby pins don't do squat for my extremely heavy hair.

I don't think I could have short hair: it poofs up too much when short, and if I just shaved it, my face is really round. I also fear the maintenance of getting an undercut, or the period of trying to grow it out.
posted by batter_my_heart at 9:51 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


Mine used to be stick-straight and a nice coppery red. When I was about 30, it started going brown and wavy. Hormones!

My hair used to be stick-straight and thinner than anyone else's ever—in high-school freshman biology, we compared hairs under a microscope, and mine was at least a third thinner than anyone else's. I also used Sun-In for years and years and years. My parents started giving my hair the Sun-In treatment when I was a kid, since they read somewhere that blond girls get more attention from teachers. I always had some red highlights, but my hair usually looked more brassy than reddish. And it was so thin, it never had any volume whatsoever, even with unfortunately liberal use of hair spray.

So a few years back, I quit with the Sun-In, and in the past couple years, I mostly quit cutting it again, like I had for a while back in college. I also quit shaving my legs for the most part after college, when my dermatographism began to manifest in earnest and make shaving a painful exercise in induced itching. And so after abandoning most regular hair interventions, I've been intrigued to find that not only do I now grow fairly significant leg hair, I've also begun to grow (and shed, ahhh) fairly thick, slightly wavy chestnut hair on my head. In some lighting, it looks positively coppery now. I can also definitely see the red highlights in my body hair more readily now, especially outside in the sun. My hair still has that unfortunate habit of falling flat, but it definitely is better than it used to be.

I also have PCOS, and the hormone changes from that are probably part of what has led to the changes in my hair. Between these changes and other associated changes in my body composition, I really look more like my mother—and perhaps her redheaded mother as well now—than ever.

Hormones are kind of fascinating!
posted by limeonaire at 9:55 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I am also ‘meant’ to have purple hair, but unfortunately the purple tone only lasts for about two weeks on my fine, straight, light brown hair, so I have rose gold hair most of the time. I’ve been going to a salon for colour the last year but it is crazy expensive, currently gathering the spoons to do it at home. Great thread Fizz!
posted by ellieBOA at 10:11 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


When I was 18 I grew my beard. I've only lived without it for 3 months since then. From about 23 to about 45 I had long hair and a short beard. I traded that about 5 years ago for short hair and a long beard. My beard grows out to terminal length at about the same place my head hair does -- mid-shoulderblade/nipple length.

These days I have a long white beard and very short hair. I'm 50. I figure I can wear this until I'm 70 or 80 and be in a nebulous middle age range the whole time like I was "somewhere in my mid-30s" the entire time I had short beard/long hair. I'm okay with this.

Also, wearing a beard like this is sort of an interesting form of IRL performance art. I've found I have to be prepared to have interactions with people that never would have happened before. I don't mind, but it's definitely been an adjustment.
posted by hippybear at 10:28 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


I've been growing my hair out since May.

I occasionally perform campy jukebox musicals with a group of friends/collaborators in a theater located in the basement of the gayest Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. Last weekend we wrapped our third run of Beaches: The Musical, featuring songs from 1988 and 89. I play Boring Husband and other characters, and I also play electric bass. So I grew my hair out for maximum 80s loft (think Bash Howard from GLOW). I also grew a cheezy mustache.

I'm sad the show is over (being aggressively boring while dancing to Tell It To My Heart is about the most fun I've ever had onstage), but I'm thrilled that I finally got to chop off my puff-ball hair and sleazy 'stache.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 10:47 PM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


OMG, under_petticoat_rule, that sounds like so much fun!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:53 PM on September 26, 2018


For the first 50+ years of my life, I would get a buzz cut (#3) then let it grow out for 2 or 3 months, then cut it again. I got it cut 4 maybe 5 times a year. I started going grey in my early 40s. 54 weeks ago was the last time I had it cut. Long story short, I have grown out my hair for a little over a year. Part of the reason was that I have a nice thick head of hair, and everyone kept telling me what nice hair I had when it was a few months long. Then my GF said not to get a buzz. Then one of my children bet me I could not let it grow more than a year. I now have long, salt and pepper slightly wavy and depending on the weather pretty frizzy hair. I CAN say with confidence and from experience, chicks dig it. Me not so much. When you sport a buzz cut, it is wash and go. Literally no maintenance. Now, it takes me an extra half an hour in the morning to wash, rinse, dry an brush it. My drains are getting clogged. It is a real pain. I am going back to the buzz shortly. I will really miss my hair, but not worth the extra work.

However, it was so worth the one time of finding out in my mid 50s that I can grow out a full head of hair. Sort of looks like Jerry Garcia's hair. Maybe I should wait until after Halloween to cut it. I could slap on a tie-dye shirt and go as most any aged hippy.

Oh, I had not seen my mother in a while and she is getting a little forgetful and at times confused. When I showed up at her door, and she knew I was coming, she did not recognize me. She actually asked if I was the new maintenance man there to change her light bulbs.
posted by AugustWest at 10:59 PM on September 26, 2018 [2 favorites]


Funny you should ask this question now. Tonight I took a scissors to my mixed straight/wavy hair, and also decided that I will stop having it professionally dyed (roots) every 3 weeks. My reddish hair went a wonderful silver gray in my early thirties. This is the way of my paternal family ... Dad in his twenties, brother, cousins, aunts, uncles.

On and off I've had gray hair and liked it although I have been told it "ages me." Well, yeah, I'm thinking that's fine. I am aged! About to be 66, lived with MS for 40 years, survived a heart attack and triple bypass surgery, and shed another in a string of partners who always had just that one thing about me that needed to change (usually my independence) LOL in order to be the perfect gf, wife, partner.

Each time I enter the salon I think: there is a better use for this money! Some charity, some campaign, I know this.

phunniemee I am inspired by your very short cut (buzz cut?)

If anyone can suggest a quick way to get rid of 5 inches of dyed reddish hair and about 0.5 inch of gray roots without scaring the neighbors, I am listening.

It would be good to reclaim another part of myself.

Oh and it's hell to maintain and style as well!
posted by alwayson_slightlyoff at 12:28 AM on September 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


Generally I love my hair! The stuff on the top of my head is thick, but with body and damn it holds a curl til the cows come home. The hair on rest of my body is dark but very fine and I can easily go up to two weeks without shaving and no one but me really noticing (I’m a woman). I know, I know #blessed.

Ironically though, I have the hardest time finding a good hairstylist. I don’t know if it’s because they’re not used to asian hair, but they always want to thin my shit out. It ends up looking frizzy with weird layers that grow out weird and flip out weird when I dry it.

But finally, finally I found a woman who Gets It. I found her when I asked another asian friend of mine who cut her hair because it looked fab. The stylist isn’t asian, British white. She just gets that she should work with what’s given instead of trying to force my hair into standards she’s used to.

Plus she does home visits and is about 40% cheaper than a high street salon. She does this does this part time now, full time working in the NHS. If she ever bumps up her fees I’m gonna fork it over no questions. Finding a stylist that works for you is so so hard to find and you gotta hold onto them when you do!
posted by like_neon at 12:58 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm not keen on my hair. It's not very interesting. Brown. Dark brown. But then I never quite know what to do with it, in the kind of lazy male way. I got a fade cut recently which I was eventually happy with but I wasn't particularly keen on the neo-nazi vibes it evoked to me initially.
I wish I knew what looked nice. It all looks the same to me, much as I know it isn't.

I have a birthmark on my left leg out of which unusually thick and dark hairs grow. I don't know if this is particularly unusual but it always struck me as odd.
posted by solarion at 1:20 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


50 is a good age to look at the things that you wanted to do when you were young, but didn't do... and if you still want to do them and have the option now, do them while you can.
In the past few years, I've basically started doing all the colouring stuff that my 15-year old self really wanted. I like it colourful but I do not feel the need to hide the fact that I'm going grey; I figure that I've earned those grey hairs and they do not look bad to me. Also colouring all over is a lot of upkeep and I can't be bothered. So I bleach an area in front and I use that to add a splash of whatever colour I fancy. Current version has purple and blue (I took this pic just now).
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:55 AM on September 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


With regards to the cards I was handed: I feel pretty lucky. I have fine hair but a lot of it. It was blonde when I was a child, darker blonde later, and now brown and turning grey. It's good hair to have and pretty easy to maintain. It grows fast, which is both a pro and a con. All in all I like my hair.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:58 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Each time I enter the salon I think: there is a better use for this money!
Yep!


If anyone can suggest a quick way to get rid of 5 inches of dyed reddish hair and about 0.5 inch of gray roots without scaring the neighbors, I am listening.
Barber, as opposed to "salon." The kind you find in a tiny little shotgun shop with the pole and a maximum of three chairs. Cheap, fast, excellent.
posted by Don Pepino at 3:11 AM on September 27, 2018


phunniemee I am inspired by your very short cut (buzz cut?)

I just go into a barber shop and ask for a #2 all over. And then swear up and down that no, I'm not going through any kind of crisis, and yes, I know exactly how short that is, I just don't want to have hair right now, I promise I'm not going to have a meltdown in your chair, would you please just do it. Thank you.



OK, here's something I like about my hair - all the hair on my arms and legs has disappeared. Completely.

When this happened to my mom it's because her thyroid had shit the bed. I hope you are ok.
posted by phunniemee at 4:33 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


phunniemee: I just go into a barber shop and ask for a #2 all over. And then swear up and down that no, I'm not going through any kind of crisis, and yes, I know exactly how short that is, I just don't want to have hair right now, I promise I'm not going to have a meltdown in your chair, would you please just do it. Thank you.

You know, you could spare yourself the trouble by getting a hair trimmer. You have to wield it yourself (or have a trusted other do it), but it's easy and safe and it doesn't ask questions.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:50 AM on September 27, 2018


limeonaire, I don't have dermatographism but I get hives a LOT. I wonder if there's something to all that!
posted by wellred at 5:19 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Thanks, phunniemee, this was years ago and I've had plenty of tests since then. I'm fine.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 6:09 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh yeah, when I was 20 I took Accutane and my hair got all curly. Everyone asked me if I got a perm. It was crazy. Did this happen to anyone else?
posted by bondcliff at 6:10 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm in an endless cycle of "chop hair off into a super short pixie" to "hey let's grow it out, that sounds fun", and for the first time in probably a decade it's made it all the way down past my chin*. It's kind of an unfortunate dull color between dishwater blonde and mousy brown, so last weekend I henna'd it and now I am WOW DEFINITELY A REDHEAD.

*I do adore the feeling of getting A Lot of Hair Chopped Off, and phunniemee's awesome buzz isn't helping...... I feel like I may be scheduling a haircut very soon.
posted by specialagentwebb at 6:18 AM on September 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


50 is a good age to look at the things that you wanted to do when you were young, but didn't do... and if you still want to do them and have the option now, do them while you can.

Love your purple and blue! I too have decided that in my 50th year of life, F everrrrrrrrrybody and all the things, all the time. At least regarding my hair. I have colored it various shades of red and blonde throughout my life. Right now it's moderately blonde with some pink streaks. For Reasons, it's hard to get to my stylist to re-up the pink as often as I'd like, and she's a little too conservative/skittish that I won't like more pink. So I just ordered some Joico Color Intensity in magenta and plan to experiment.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 6:29 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have fine hair but a lot of it. It was blonde when I was a child, darker blonde later, and now brown and turning grey.

This is me too. I was platinum-blond as a little kid, and now it's dishwater blond-bordering-on-brown. But with an increasing patch of gray at the forehead and along the part. Which I kind of like - firstly, because it's the kind of stripe-effect that Bonnie Raitt has and I kinda dug that, and also because it sort of coordinates with the color my hair is and looks like it's more like highlighting. It also looks kind of like it's sparkling.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:40 AM on September 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


I went back to work after quite a long vacation and with a beard. People lost their shit, like, oh my goodness, you have a beard. Anyone would think I hadn't noticed.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 6:45 AM on September 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


EmpressCallipygos, Bonnie Raitt is my hair idol. Also my singing idol.
posted by wellred at 6:53 AM on September 27, 2018


Another balding person here, so I just buzz it all short (head shorter than beard, but both are short); eventually I will have to switch to shaving it but I'm not quite there yet.

short hair and a long beard.

I keep being tempted to do grow my beard out but I have never been able to get it past the awkward length, 2 inches or so, where it just sort of poofs out and looks unkempt. One of these days I will stick it out and see how I look with a serious beard.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:53 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


One of these days I will stick it out and see how I look with a serious beard.

I've done this once in the past and sadly I was profiled really aggressively for having it, so I've been hesitant to grow it beyond what I'm currently sporting. I wish that this wasn't something I had to take into consideration, but enough micro-aggressions have just sort of burned that idea into my brain and it's hard to let go of.
posted by Fizz at 6:57 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I’ve generally been fond of my hair, and kept it long except under duress. My whole life I had hair so thick that everybody dealing with it commented on it with wide eyes. “Omigosh, you’ve got SO MUCH HAIR!” Haircuts took muuuch longer than they should have. Blowdrying took forever. But if I went to bed with it wet, it would still be damp in the morning. So except for that thankfully brief period in the 80’s where I looked like I’d stepped off an Ozzie album cover, I’ve kept my just-this-side-of-prehensile hair fairly simple.

Illness has changed my hair. I’ve embraced the gray, in part to protect what’s left of it. It’s so fragile, and when I’m in physical or mental distress I shed like a black cat on a white sweater. My head feels unnaturally light, and I’m melancholy about it. But nobody gets it. Because my hair was always so thick and heavy that nobody but my stylist notices that it’s thinning. The breakage has made things really frizzy, too. Illness has taken so much from me, it seems frivolous to be mourning my hair. But I do. I pretty much live in a bun now. When I take it down at night, it cascades over my shoulders as though it is still full. Then I put it in a loose braid for bed. If it ever all goes, though, I am going to be a wig queen!
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 7:05 AM on September 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


That sucks, Fizz.

My facial hair has gone a bit salt and pepper and I’m kind of looking forward to my top hair going grey? Like, maybe I’ll get a cool stripe, or if it all goes I could rock a David Lynch.
posted by rodlymight at 7:21 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


EmpressCallipygos, Bonnie Raitt is my hair idol. Also my singing idol.

My dad has had a celebrity crush on her since about 1972 so she's always kind of been life wallpaper for me (we had Nick of Time playing around the house a lot when it came out).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:52 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have a lot of hair for a dude just south of 50. Though it's salt and peppery (and I am happy about that) it's thick and tends to curly. I've had my hair cut every six weeks by Arthur, a now very-retired Scottish barber for whom I'm his only client. Arthur pretty much saved my hair when I first went to him c.2005. His mantra is no thinning shears, and a small amount of good quality shampoo then even less conditioner.

Having good hair now makes up for a cringeworthy childhood. Mum would cut our hair and would always leave it long over my ears. Given that my ears aren't small there would always be a tiny single curl (in otherwise thin straight hair) above my ears. It was the worst, and seemed to know when it was time for school photographs to be extra sproingy.
posted by scruss at 8:08 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


50 is a good age to look at the things that you wanted to do when you were young, but didn't do... and if you still want to do them and have the option now, do them while you can.

The reason my pony tail was so light in the before picture is that I spent most of the last year, between the end of being 50 and the beginning of being 51, finally dying it. First red, just to see, and then green. I really liked the green.
posted by hanov3r at 8:09 AM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I hate hate hate my hair. It's very, very fine, and super thin -- so thin, now, that you can see my scalp through it pretty much all the time. It mortifies me and makes me feel pretty damned awful about myself. And it's getting thinner the older I get, so I have panic attacks thinking about what I'll do when it gets to the point where I'm just bald on top and have thin, straggly, gross wisps of hair around the sides. Just typing this out makes me want to cry.
posted by sarcasticah at 8:14 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


(I would buzz my hair off super super short, but I fear it's too thin to look okay like that, and also I already feel like my head looks like a giant lumpy potato, so...)
posted by sarcasticah at 8:26 AM on September 27, 2018


I have good hair. AugustWest's description about when to cut and why is identical to my own, except for the age difference.

I have a collection of grey stress hairs. I really wanted them to be white, but if you look closely, I have some black ones that match, which is how to know they're salt & pepper. They add highlights to my hair that are way cooler than anything I could dye in.

Just yesterday, I was sharing a ride on a tandem bicycle on a multi-user path, and me and my partner were talking about how weird it is that women are expected to shave armpits and leg hair, and men are expected to have no beard or a trimmed beard. Our conclusion was that, for some unknown reason, these traits are thought of as clean. Bet it's one of those induced trends from back in the day that's really about selling razors.
posted by aniola at 8:38 AM on September 27, 2018


One of these days I will stick it out and see how I look with a serious beard.

One thing I am good at is beard growing. I end up with a legitimate beard accidentally fairly often just because I forget to shave for a few days.
posted by octothorpe at 8:53 AM on September 27, 2018


I have a lot of hair, and I shed scary amounts. If I don't sweep my bedroom floor weekly, I'll start to get a small mat of a hair rug around areas I spend a lot of time in. I shed so easily that I joke if I ever become a serial killer, I will be known as the Hair Net Killer in an attempt not to leave evidence around.

Growing up, I always had super super straight hair, but when puberty hit, it started getting a bit wavy. I actually like going to bed with my hair slightly wet because bed head hair for me is fantastic 90% of the time. I end up with great tousled wavy hair without any products/time spent curling.

Having thick long hair in winters in Chicago was also a great boon. I had a built in neck warmer!

The drawback of having so much hair is I've never been able to completely straighten or curl my hair for any sort of hairdo. There's just so much. For prom, I remember I wanted it curled, but the hair dresser only got through maaaaybe 40% of my hair after 3 hours. Similar things happened for my brother's wedding.

Now that I've written this, I guess I really like my hair!
posted by astapasta24 at 9:00 AM on September 27, 2018


I always wanted to be the kind of older academic woman who had long witchy hair with gray streaks in it, but I'm not there yet, either.

I, too, have always wanted Susan Sontag hair.

(I occasionally encounter a 60ish academic woman with a gray buzzcut and a fondness for scarves and bangles and boy does she pull it off.)

I come from a family of thick-haired people and mine was always the thickest of us all, to the point of "Gee, I wish I had your hair," but it's begun to thin significantly JUST THIS YEAR and the only thing I can think of is it's all the goddamn stress. Anyway, here I am delivering peak bedhead.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:13 AM on September 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm in my early 50s, and am trying to decide whether I should cut my hair short, or stop dying it and let it go grey, or both. There are a lot of people who look awesome with grey hair, but I'm not sure I'm one of them.
posted by holborne at 9:26 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


awwww *blushes* thanks for asking. I have long considered my hair to be my best feature. it is thick and fluffy and soft, currently to my waist. it used to be straight but has gotten wavy as I have gotten older. it is a natural med/dark coppery golden blonde. I have a decent amount of gray now but its scattered and not super obvious. I call it my sparkles.
posted by supermedusa at 9:29 AM on September 27, 2018


There's a woman who for years has been getting opera season tix in the same section as me. She's 60ish by my best guess, and has wonderful hair. Her hair is gray and she's got a real short buzzcut everyhwere but in the front, where she's got a kewpie doll thing she keeps royal blue.

She also wears cargo pants to the opera. I love her.
posted by phunniemee at 9:30 AM on September 27, 2018 [8 favorites]


I have fine, straight, thin reddish-brown/brownish-red hair(here's vintage high school) tending toward oily* that disappointed me throughout my youth for its abject failure to turn lush and curly and pre-Raphaelite no matter how brutally I tortured it (and as someone who was an adolescent for the back half of the 80s, torture is only the slightest exaggeration). I've cut it off in almost every style and dyed it most natural and unnatural warm colors (I'm too ruddy for cool colors) in an effort to arrive at something that wasn't miserably depressing. I tried to wear it long for years, but unless I spent hours with haidryers and curling irons and products, it would revert to what looked sort of the skid row embodiment of Grunge.

I last cut it all off in about 2013 and have sense worn it in several variations of the same pixie cut (halfway between Edie Sedgwick and British School Boy, but messy), because short generally leaves me less to worry about and it feels fucking fantastic and I don't mind the maintenance (I like getting my hair cut). Also, nothing is better for a statement earring than short hair. And lord, do I ever love a statement earring.

All said, though, my hair is still hilarious without effort. I've recently been recounting my morning hair (I work from home) because it keeps me humble and is often physics defying.



*How oily? I once asked my hairdresser, "I've been told that I shouldn't shampoo my hair every day." She responded, "That's absolutely true for most people. You, on the other hand, should shampoo your hair every day."
posted by thivaia at 9:39 AM on September 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


My hair is red and for almost all my life has been very long and straight. When I was diagnosed with cancer it was halfway down my back. Then I was bald. Now, three years later, it's finally past my shoulders again. I tell people I am never cutting it again and they think I'm joking, but the joke's on them, dudes. I'm going to be Crystal Gayle.
posted by something something at 10:05 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


This [Northern Hemisphere] summer I stopped colouring my hair. This is big. My mother's mother's legacy is her children starting to gray in their early 30s, so everyone colours it. I once tried not colouring around age 40 because I'd gotten a really cool cut in Edinburgh for my 41st b'day and liked the pepper and salt effect. To no avail. During the next trip home, mom literally dyed my hair black herself because it would make her (21 years older than me) look old. She only gave up colouring it this year at age 73 and is pure white now. Me, otoh, have a very nice silvery shimmery helmet thing going on right now.

I get treated differently. I get more respect. I get compliments on my hair. I'm liking it.
posted by infini at 10:06 AM on September 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


My hair is going (let's be honest: has gone) prematurely grey. It's a family thing on my mother's side, though my brother seems to have escaped it. It's meant I don't pay a lot of attention to it, because I refuse to colour it, and so I just try to keep it short and neat and ignore it because I don't know what else to do; I don't feel old enough to play into it, and I don't want to draw attention to it. If I thought my head wouldn't turn out to be all lumpy, I would consider shaving it all off.
posted by nubs at 10:07 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


My hair is red towards brown (was closer to orange as a kid, darkened as an adult and now the bits of grey at my temples are lightening the front again) and very straight. The sort of straight where in the late 80s hairdressers would offer to put volume in it when I went for a updo and then give up halfway through. My hair was not fashionable in my youth, I was about 15 years too early for the GHD perfect straightened hair my hair was perfect for.

So I used to just let it get long and do a lot of plaits. Sometimes bobs, which suit really straight hair but hairdressers scare me so I'd just let it grow long again. Also, I tended to think long hair was easier to style as a plump woman.

And then about 3 or 4 years ago I started getting it shorter and now I am here (after some gentler undercuts, I finally convinced my hairdresser I really wanted it #2 clipped up to my part line):

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn_it7rHvqJ/?taken-by=hfnuala

Which I love but is accidentally a way more aggressive haircut than I realised - I'm mean, it's not the full tank girl but no wonder people keep assuming I am vegan.

Also, I recently got really sick and was hospitalised for a week and a half and there's nothing like a brush with serious illness for helping you realise this is the only time for you to stop trying to pretend to be someone you aren't and just dress/present like you always wanted to. There may not be a later.
posted by hfnuala at 10:20 AM on September 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


I remember my mother getting her hair frosted when I was little. They'd cover her hair with what looked like a heavy rubber bathing cap with little holes in it. Then they'd pull wisps of hair through the holes with a wire hook and bleach just those wisps.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:22 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


What I hate about having crossed menopause some years ago is the chin hair. I HATE it. I like the effect of more testosterone in my blood stream because I've gotten LOUDER with my opinions but the chin hair. I hate it. I travel with tweezers.
posted by infini at 10:39 AM on September 27, 2018 [12 favorites]


A battleground between the forces of:

I Want To Keep the Bills Paid and This Job Bans Cool Hair Color and If You Quit You'd Never Find Something Else and You Aren't Fun Enough for a Cool Undercut Anyway You Poser
vs.
I Hate Everything and Backslide Into Depression-Lite Every Time I'm Late Getting a Trim / You Can't Be Queer Without a Cool Dyed Undercut So Shut Up and Make Some Babies, You Stupid Square

Luckily, keeping my pink-collar corporate-ish job helps me pay for therapy, so...
posted by cage and aquarium at 10:42 AM on September 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


Fizz you are adorable!

I want to extend sympathy to those for whom this topic is causing such pain. we are all always so hard on ourselves for the flaws we think define us. as a teen I thought I was hideous (bad skin, glasses, braces, but probably not the monster I thought I was) but I knew I had good hair and that was a comfort to me in my conviction of my own ugliness. and as I age, yeah, I'm vain about my hair. as a woman facing menopause its kinda scary, not knowing what changes the future is bringing.

my last salon blow-out its never like this at home. I'm far too lazy.

very wavy due to high humidity

I think those of you who've shared pics all look a lot better than you think you do!
posted by supermedusa at 10:50 AM on September 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


and I would TOTALLY look like a potato if bald. if my hair goes its gonna be all the wigs and cool scarves...
posted by supermedusa at 10:51 AM on September 27, 2018


I keep mine short on the sides and in the back, longer on top. It reacts to the humidity but on a good day I wear it like this. My hair is very thick and grows super quickly, so I am happy for the punch card that SuperCuts offers.
posted by coppermoss at 11:29 AM on September 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


For years, I had a bowl cut, mostly because my immigrant parents were too frugal to spend money paying somebody else to do our haircuts, but also because my mom thought super-short bowl cuts were cute, as well as more hygienic. (That line from Guards! Guards! about Carrot's hair being cut short for reasons of hygiene always makes me laugh.)

So yeah, every year, sometime in the summer, my mom cut my hair. And it would end up being a serious, extended negotiation before I sat down in the chair in the basement about just how long and where those long bits would be, and then, there would be blatant re-trading once my butt touched the chair. It always ended up too short, so some of my deepest childhood memories are of white, suburban kids at the bus stop asking me what happened to my hair over the summer.

On the other hand, it's probably a good idea that my mom didn't always keep her promises, because one year, I successfully negotiated to keep the most * ~~~ important* part of it long, and well. Please imagine:

1. Ten year old joyceanmachine
2. With giant tortoisehsell glasses
3. Wearing a matching top-and-bottom sweatsuit with random English words, which relatives had gotten as freebies from working in clothing factories in Hong Kong and sent over
4. And light-up high-tops
5. Standing in her fifth grade Talented & Gifted Class
6. SPORTING A SIX INCH RATTAIL

(It took me the better part of a decade as a grown-ass working adult, but I finally found a lady who cuts my thick, super-coarse hair into a bob well and consistently. Apparently, she actually enjoys doing bobs because they're so technical, especially with hair like mine, and she recently moved to a cheaper salon. I'm very happy about it.)
posted by joyceanmachine at 11:32 AM on September 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


too-ticky,that inspirational!
posted by theora55 at 11:40 AM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


As a child: Very blond, loads of hair, slight wave - always cut at barbershops because they wouldn't "thin" it. They always said it was so slippery it was like trying to cut flax. It was kept in a pageboy with bangs, sides to that just the tips of ears showed. I sweated a lot when I slept as a child, so unusual cowlicks would show up at various times. They were untame-able.
Teen through adult: Still blond, but with a lot of red undertones. Oily, oily, oily. Varied between super-short (1/2" overall) to waist-length. Mostly some variation of a 'pixie' cut. Loads of body, but won't hold a curl for beans - it just slowly reverts to the natural way - my current hairdresser said it's because of the weight of my hair, there's so much, it just pulls the curl/style out. At it's longest, I would put it in a French Braid while wet, and it would still be damp at the center the next day when I took it out.
post-menopause: Dishwater blond, with darker blond/red undertones, very slowly going gray (kinda silvery platinum). I've worn it mostly short-ish, now in a bob, all one length, side-parted, and a bit shorter underneath. I cut it from waist-length (the longest it will grow) in menopause, because I had a year's long hot flash, and long hair was like wearing a fur cape. I only have to wash it about every four days now, and it looks fine when I get up after sleeping on it. I just let it air-dry naturally, and use virtually no product. My hairdresser said once: "You have such great hair!". I liked that.
posted by dbmcd at 12:00 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have dark brown hair. It's been dark brown for 59 years.

My SO insists that it is black. I wish it was naturally black. To the point that I'm considering dying it black, to see the reaction.
posted by Splunge at 12:04 PM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


This administration has literally made my hair curl. It was always fairly straight with a slight wave and now is a full-on mop of curls. I'd blame hormones but I'm currently blaming my hormones on the administration, too.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 12:51 PM on September 27, 2018 [7 favorites]


It's pretty much a medium brown, shoulder length that I cut myself, with halfhearted waves that can turn into curls if I treat it properly. But I stopped dyeing it about 5 years ago so now it's shot through with glittery platinum strands that I LOVE. I wish all of my hair was sparkly.

Sadly I don't know if that's ever going to happen. My mom is 69 and has barely more sparkle strands than I do.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:10 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


My hair is fine, straight and mouse brown. At the moment, it's about shoulder-blade length. I keep threatening to get it cut, but I'm not really sure what to do with it. I used to have a bob, but they're hit and miss, and too many misses have made me wary. Mostly I just tie it back in a ponytail, or a French twist for an interview. The good thing with fine hair is that it stays up just with a hair comb.
posted by Kris10_b at 1:21 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I had super-fine super-straight blonde hair growing up and was told repeatedly that many women would kill to have that kind of hair. But then my hairline had receded to approximately the zenith of my skull before I was 20.

In the mid-90s I gave up on the long-hair-bald-spot serial killer look and shaved it all off. Have kept it that way ever since.

If I had any choice in the matter this would NOT be my style. But you can say that about basically every aspect of my body ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Foosnark at 1:26 PM on September 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


Dark brown hair with dark blue highlights! I've wanted this forever and finally had it done last fall. I get compliments on it almost every day. I work at a hospital and the hair goes great with my dark blue scrubs. Like a patient told me the other day "Fits great with your pajamas, m'am!"
posted by M. at 1:28 PM on September 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


I have fine, soft kitten hair that is impossible to do any type of styling with. It used to be blond but now it's the nondescript color of dirty dishwater. I've started going to my wife's stylist, and she has me using some type of product which doesn't really do much but cost money.

My son, however, has brilliant hair. Blond, wavy, thick. That boy got his hair genes from his mother, thankfully.
posted by slogger at 1:57 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Too-Ticky, I think I started dyeing my hair unnatural colors about when I was 50. Well, I did it in the 80s too, but not much since then.
posted by matildaben at 2:46 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I hate hate hate my hair. It's very, very fine, and super thin -- so thin, now, that you can see my scalp through it pretty much all the time. It mortifies me and makes me feel pretty damned awful about myself. And it's getting thinner the older I get, so I have panic attacks thinking about what I'll do when it gets to the point where I'm just bald on top and have thin, straggly, gross wisps of hair around the sides. Just typing this out makes me want to cry.

UGH ALL SAME YES. Checking the back view to make sure no bright white scalp is poking through above the sad tiny bun: Definitely the way I wanna start my day.

Also fun: clicking through photos over the last 3 years to watch my forehead grow an inch.

Swear to god I'm about ready to start a podcast about women-and-femme-presenting-folks and hair loss because how is nobody doing anything about this shit.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:49 PM on September 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


I recently shaved my chest for reasons, my life is now the itchy punchline to a Seinfeld subplot.
posted by peeedro at 4:17 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have long, very fine and curly hair, 2c-3b. I once saw a strand of it literally hang in the air and float away horizontally a few years ago. I wonder if it's landed anywhere.

I used to have a LOT more hair than I do now, but it's thinning. I'd say in the last year and a half, I've lost about 40% of it, but it's diffuse and still 99.9% dark, so people can't tell just yet if I comb it carefully. When it's down, I can see light shine through the strands. The dermatologist could tell, also, and she said to try Rogaine 5%, but I'm afraid of that stuff. Is it worth it?

I'd be happy to cut my hair short if there's a decent, non-"let me speak to the manager" cut out there for fine curly hair. I Google for hair help, and the sites all look so sketchy, so I'm not sure where I can go for factual hair styling info.
posted by droplet at 4:45 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


My parents: seventy-something and both greying (present tense). Me: fiftyish and not even (well, some silver on the chin).

My dad, when he was around my age: "No grey hair yet. More and more flesh-coloured ones, though."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:44 PM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have very fine medium brown hair that is impervious to styling agents. I've permed it (with the same effects that Empress detailed at the top), curled it, blown it dry, used mousse, hair spray, gel, you name it.

I eventually gave up and kept it very short for several years. That was fine, but I decided for a change of pace and grew it back out about five years ago. I found a reasonably priced haircutter near my old job who knew how to cut layers and didn't try to push me on styling my hair more than an occasional blowdry (my hair goes under a helmet twice a day for my commute, so there's really no point). However, I do get tired of simply putting it into a ponytail or doing a sloppy bun, (not to mention the schlep out to Greenpoint has lost its appeal), so I'm starting to wonder what the next step is.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 6:10 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I've always had frizzy, frizzled, very wiry hair. It's about 60% grey, maybe 40% red-brown. I have a streak of denser silver in the front. I was blonde before I grew out the grey, and it took hours and hundreds of dollars, and it didn't really give me the different view of myself that I'd hoped. I'm only 40 and it seems like a lot of grey, but I try to keep it in a youthful cut (as much as it can be controlled). I'm happy to have the time and money back that I was spending on it. It's too short though -- it grows slowly, with curls of many different diameters and slopes, and I need to go back on biotin to get it to grow more. It never looks neat to my eye, especially by the end of the day, when it's floofing out from its ponytail, behind my ears and hairline.

Ladies with shiny hair: don't take it lightly. I'll never stop being jealous of you.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:32 PM on September 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


My hair is one of the very few things about my body I was happy with. I grew it long as a teenager (which made my mom pretty unhappy, although she tolerated it) and kept it that way until my mid-30's. It was pretty thick/strong, slightly wavy --- I wished it was a little straighter (really wanted perfectly straight hair, and did a couple straight perms with not great success), but was pretty happy anyway.

I actually started going grey around 17, which was fine --- grey hair at such a young age looks kinda cool (at least I thought so) and doesn't make you look old really. I also dyed it a lot, so it didn't matter too much.

Couple years ago I started losing it, which unlike the grey thing really bothered me. I'm currently doing various medical stuff to thwart that, which is finally working fairly well. It's kind of a pain, but for now it's better than the alternative.

I suspect someday I will decide I no longer care (or don't want to keep taking medicine and such to preserve it) and just let it go, but that day has not come yet. As I said, its one of the few things about my appearance I was happy with for most of my life (and am mostly happy with again, now) so I'm not ready to lose that in "just" my early forties.
posted by thefoxgod at 6:41 PM on September 27, 2018


Funny, because I've been thinking about hair. For the first time in a long time I am growing my hair longer. It started by just not having time to get my usual ultra short pixie/Gertrude Stein cut but then post-menopause the texture was different so I let it grow and it is nice hair! I started going grey in my twenties and by the time I had my youngest child at 39 I was mostly grey and rather than be taken for her grandmother I started dyeing it. This made my mother very happy as she dyed hers and wasn't crazy about having a grey haired daughter while she was a spritely strawberry blond. My color is L'Oreal Medium Ash Brown, on top of pure white hair (i think).

On Sunday my grandson was over and he stopped playing on the rug to look at me seriously. He came over and said "Nonnie, your hair is beautiful!" very seriously, so there's that.
posted by readery at 7:15 PM on September 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


My parents: seventy-something and both greying (present tense).

Yeah, I mentioned my father's parents and their premature gray hair above, but Mom's parents were the opposite. Her father died in his 60's without a gray hair, and her mother only had a couple in her 80's when she passed away.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:22 PM on September 27, 2018


When I was in 15 I would grab a chunk of the hair at my hairline in the middle of my forehead and cut it to about an inch long so it stood up like a tiny mohawk. My mom would occasionally ask me if I had cut my hair. I always said no.

Fifteen years ago I fell into the trap that I swore I'd never fall into and started coloring my hair. But dang it it feels good to be glossy platinum blonde at 48 years old.

In my early 20s I cut my own hair. When I was in college I'd shave the back under the long part. But I had another phase. I found a photo of me punching down a patch panel in my first job - I know I was wearing almost exclusively men's Gap clothes that were way too big. I wasn't even cool enough to cut a tiny mohawk or shave the hidden part, I had a full-on Dorothy Hamill.

Flickr is down or I'd share the photo.
posted by bendy at 9:32 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


There it is.
posted by bendy at 9:38 PM on September 27, 2018 [10 favorites]


I keep what's left of my brown-blond hair cut short (No. 2 clipper), but every time I see myself in a mirror I think it might be time to formally surrender to male pattern baldness and shave it off. My workplace has these video conference setups that cause me to see myself on camera at various angles, and I keep thinking my head looks like an egg with skin stretched over it.

But in the meantime I'm learning to help my 3 year old daughter do her hair. That's fun.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 11:55 PM on September 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have automatic hair. Looks great no matter what. Shower, comb, done. Thick, dark brown, short and wavy with just a fine sprinkle of silver (I’m 60).

Yeah, I have that going for me. One part of my family is assholes, alcoholics, and great hair. I got those genes. Now that it's shorter I just get out of bed and it's good. If I get out of bed and it's not good it's time for a haircut.

I also quit shampooing years ago when I started buzzing/shaving during the summer and just never started again. Although I always had greasy hair when I was younger it's just fine without washing it now, even putting stuff in it. If it's dirty I rinse it.

I'm also surprised at all the people here with real faces. Nice ones.
posted by bongo_x at 2:07 AM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I've kept my hair pretty short, but not quite buzz-cut short (enough that it still lays down after a haircut). It has a tendency to get curly if I let it get too long, which I don't like. I'm also thinning on top, and to a lesser extent on one side of my forehead. I've been using minoxidil for a couple of years, but I'm not sure if it's helping. Certainly not to the point of regrowing my lost hair, but whether it's helping slow the hair loss...I honestly can't say. I'm not ready to shave my head, as some of my balding acquaintances have done, but I'm thinking about more extreme methods of hair restoration. But I've been skeptical of the ads, knowing that they're only going to show the very best results, and haven't had much luck trying to find objective reviews. My (admittedly limited to this point) googling turns up, after the ads touting only the very best results, the horror stories which show only the worst results.

Also recently went from a goatee to a full beard (associated AskMe). Not nearly as thick as I'd like, especially on the sides, but enough to keep for a while, I think. I've colored my goatee-now-beard for a while: I wouldn't mind if it were all gray, nor if it was sort of an even salt-and-pepper look, but I've got two big patches of gray in an otherwise brown beard, which I don't like the look of at all. I'm starting to get a bit of gray up top too, but that's coming in better, so I'm leaving that. A tiny little shock right at the front that I think looks decent, and a bit of salt-and-pepper at the sides.

I recently started going to a high-end salon for haircuts, away from the old low-end cheap place. I don't know if it makes that much difference for the haircut itself, with my hair as short as it is anyway and not that much to be done with it, but I like the overall experience better. I've also started using "product" most days at their recommendation which I'm not sure how I feel about. On the plus side, it keeps my hair from sticking out in weird ways, especially on the sides when it gets to certain lengths; on the minus, I prefer the naturally soft feel to my hair without it, and some of the scents are stronger than I'd like, especially as a person who mostly avoids fragrances.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:47 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


I quite like my hair: thick, straight, currently shortish, and I have never dyed it so I am greyer than most 40-year-olds.

My experience with hair is a nice illustration of how women can't win sometimes. When I was a kid in the 80s, straight hair was not the done thing so hairdressers used to take the curling tongs to it (one burned my ear once, but that's another story). Now, it is deemed to be not straight enough, and they take the straightening irons to it.

I use neither tongs nor irons, and no product.
posted by altolinguistic at 3:53 AM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


Hair is this wierd subject for me. My hair is long, not quite to my hips, but like 3/4ths down my back . Not to happy with the color, don't wear it down in public (it goes in a bun). I don't take great care of it so the ends are frizzy and full of split ends. It has nice body and a wave to it, but getting it to set that way and not become a frizzy mess is not something I've ever accomplished. But it looks amazing right out of my bun.

Anyway, I think I'd be horrifically ugly with it short. I kind of want it short, but I think I'd hate it. The lack of effort I put into my hair, my gender identity, and look preference ALL screams pixie short hair.

I can't tell if it's abuse related, just because or good sense (that it would look terrible). My abusive father had a rule we had to have at least shoulder length hair as children (both brother and I). We could get it trimmed but not shorter than that. My mom chopped her hair off when I was a kid and he was rageful about it, and I just have this idea it would be ugly and such . But I feel my hair now is performative femme and UGH.

But it's nice and long and I have some moments of pride.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:36 AM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


Just chopped off a bunch of my hair, taking it from this to this. It was a totally impulsive decision, mostly because of split ends, and part of me misses the length but it also feels really damned good.

I've been cutting and dyeing my own hair for over a decade now. In the past, I had one or two disasters, but I've learned ways to reliably cut it, mostly from a website that used to be run by this woman. I also cut my daughter's and husband's hair. I sometimes think about going for a professional cut but I find doing it myself so easy that it never feels worth it to me. This, despite giving myself increasingly elaborate styles (I have an undercut right now). The last time I remember going was 2007. I'd always disliked getting professional cuts generally, and I was always getting chastised for cutting my own bangs, or whatever. I figure it's a part of my body and I don't want anyone criticizing what I do with it.

Anyway, when I chopped off some length I ended up cutting out all the green and blue from my hair (I also dye it myself with Punky Colours) and i miss it. Still has some pink but I've had green in my hair for over a year and it's hard not to identify with that just a little bit now! So the green will probably come back soon.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:39 AM on September 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


Oh, and one of the thrills of adulthood has been discovering that I don't have what I thought had been poorly behaved, wavy hair but actually curly hair, and that if I just air dry it and don't brush it, it generally behaves very nicely. I came from a family of people whose hair barely waves and had a childhood full of screaming when my hair was brushed (and being told to brush it all the time) and I was convinced it was full of cowlicks. But no. Curls.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:43 AM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


I have crappy fine hair. I keep it in a short weedwacked pixie that I've been clipping myself. Right now the top is maybe 3/4" long. The sides and back are a tiny bit shorter but I don't remember which guard comb I last used. Right now the color is in its natural state which is a mousy light brown with some light grey and white throughout. I'm having a very hate/hate/hate relationship with all hair color right now. I love some of the semi perm pastel colors but they are such a pain to maintain. I will likely be doing something to the color the next couple days because I can't deal with in its natural state either. I have all the hair color in my supply so it'll probably be a spur of the moment decision.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 7:41 AM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I recently started dying my hair blue and it brings me so much joy. Also, I was alerted to the existence of Overtone color conditioner which keeps it blue with very little effort (going on two months now with virtually no fade!)
posted by tangosnail at 9:39 AM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


I shave with lasers.
posted by clavdivs at 11:05 AM on September 28, 2018


I posted in another thread recently, but I let my hair go grey a few years ago when I was 39, I'm 42 now. I was born with a full head of thick, dark hair. My Mum's a hairdresser and she said she cut it when I was 6 weeks old because it was growing over my eyes. She kept it short when I was a kid - sadly. She said it was because it was the style in the late 70s/early 80s but I think it was just because it was thick and wavy, ie a pain in the arse. My sister's straight, silky hair was allowed to grow longer, strangely... Although only as long as a pageboy cut so at least both our childhood photos are stupid-looking in their own ways. She let me start growing it about 8 or 9, and apart from a brief, disastrous short haircut when I was about 12 and had an over-fondness for hair gel, it's always been long. When I was a shy, overweight teenager with acne I hid behind it, but as an adult I just like it long even though I don't do much with it - down during the day, tied up in a bun as soon as I come home.

It's been dyed every colour over the years for fun, but I've been going grey since 17 and the last few years turned into a chore to keep the roots at bay and I got fed up. When I decided to stop dying it I just let it grow - no highlights or pixie cuts - so I rocked a badger look for many months and got a fair few negative comments, but it was a good lesson in not-giving-a-fuck. I got used to people having conversations with me while maintaining eye contact with the top of my head. I got it cut short (for me) after about a year and then started growing it out again. Now it's long and grey and I love it a lot. (The people who told me not to go grey then also told me not to grow it long and grey because I'd look "witchy". They seemed to think that was some kind of deterrent lol). It can look like this when it's done, but most of the time it looks like this, as in flyaways and a bit bushy and me trying valiantly to manage a cowslick and a widows peak which gives me this kinky bit at the front that does not straighten without tools, and generally I can't be arsed with tools, but I'm not too bothered. I wash it once a week at most because I have to dry it and it takes too long. It does not like air-dried and it hates humidity. On a bad day it looks more like this but whiter. I'm grateful to have it, and to like it, and thanks for the post Fizz - it's been so nice seeing faces!
posted by billiebee at 11:07 AM on September 28, 2018 [8 favorites]


PhoBWan your daughter is adorable and she has fantastic hair! I love the color.
posted by supermedusa at 11:26 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have hair too, fellow humans! We all have so much in common!
posted by sfenders at 11:54 AM on September 28, 2018 [5 favorites]


I have trichtotillomania.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:31 PM on September 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


I discovered cowashing recently. I don't use shampoo anymore and all of a sudden I have really cute curls. I never had curls before.
posted by Tarumba at 12:34 PM on September 28, 2018


I shave with lasers.

Does it make you look like a scruffy-looking Nerf herder? ;)

She kept it short when I was a kid - sadly. She said it was because it was the style in the late 70s/early 80s but I think it was just because it was thick and wavy, ie a pain in the arse... She let me start growing it about 8 or 9...

I touched on this in another thread recently, but I'm another one who was always in conflict with my parents about hair. Dad wanted it short because he didn't like being reminded that we were daughters instead of sons, and Mom wanted it short so it would be less work. I hate hate hate hate hated having that constant puxie cut that looked like a little black helmet. (It's now a medium brown, but it was a lot darker back then.)

Dad's sister cut our hair, and I remember always being mad at her because no matter what I asked for, she did that exact damn pixie cut every time. I didn't find out until after she died that Mom and Dad had always told her to do it that way, out of my earshot. I feel guilty every time I think about her now. As it was, I can remember her being almost driven to tears because my hair was so thick and slippery it would slide out of the scissors. It wasn't until I was about nine and too big to physically force into the chair that I was able to grow it out like I wanted.

And so Mom was all, fine, but you're not getting any help taking care of it. So it was always getting snarls or tangles and I'd have to pick them out by myself. And getting all the shampoo but was a challenge. Braidingave helped, but it was too heavy and straight (especially for a kid's hands to work with).

Chicks, man.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:39 PM on September 28, 2018


I discovered cowashing recently.

I would love to move to co-washing. Sadly, my psoriasis says "no, you're gonna keep using shampoo".
posted by hanov3r at 1:22 PM on September 28, 2018


I would love to move to co-washing. Sadly, my psoriasis says "no, you're gonna keep using shampoo".

Yep. I've tried going no-poo and co-only but man, the "dandruff." Right now I occasionally zap it with prescription nizoral and/or a steroid. Sucks. But oh well.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 2:06 PM on September 28, 2018


As a teenager (guy, Class of 1983) I had long luscious dark brown hair. We're talking feathered, bangs down to the eyebrows, shoulder-length, glorious.

Now as an old I have short mostly-gray hair. Sometimes I think it might be starting to get thin on top but then I think I'm being paranoid. I try not to worry about things I can't do anything about. I need a haircut about every 3/4 weeks because it's heavy and starts to get hot. I don't remember how I dealt with the long hair in high school; I grew up in the heat and humidity of northern Virginia.

One bonus of being an old is getting more hair to deal with. Eyebrows, nose, and ears all have more hair than ever.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:39 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I discovered cowashing recently.

Co-washing sounds like a disruptive bathroom-sharing app that could be called Showr, with surge pricing in the mornings and Showr-pool for cheaper co-showering with groups of strangers.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:18 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Facts about my hair:

It's good hair. Thick and shiny with just a little wave. My teen years coincided with the Farrah Fawcett trend and my hair did that brilliantly, so that was a stroke of luck. Once someone crossed a parking lot to tell me how pretty it was.

I shed INSANE amounts of hair all over the bathroom floor. My solution has been to buy Swiffer dry wipes and wipe it up with those on blow-dry days (i.e., every other day). If anyone has a better solution, for the love of God please tell me.

Men always say they don't want you to color your hair but I wonder if that's really true. It's starting to go gray and while it's not unattractive, I do think it makes me look a little vulnerable somehow. I always said I wouldn't color it but I wasn't anticipating this emotional aspect.
posted by HotToddy at 4:31 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Billiebee, your hair is gorgeous! I really wish I’d start getting more gray but it’s limited to 10-20 sprigs sticking up at the top of my forehead. Gray seems like it would have actual body, so I’m all for that! And at 52, I have way less than either of my folks had at the same age (also less than my two younger siblings).
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:52 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have trichtotillomania.

I have excoriation disorder/dermatillomania that's focused primarily on my scalp, which is why I cut my own hair (because I'm too ashamed to go to a stylist and explain myself) and stopped dyeing it (because abrasions and chemicals don't mix).

So basically I just want to say I see you, I understand, it sucks, and you're not alone. <3
posted by elsietheeel at 7:34 PM on September 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


I discovered cow-washing, too! Boy, the milk tastes so much better now.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:08 PM on September 28, 2018 [4 favorites]


Pretty sure that's cow-ashing, which is a religious thing if I'm not mistaken.
Co-pooing is something I'm not into but I don't like to judge.
posted by bongo_x at 12:55 AM on September 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


my hair is a pretty boring colour naturally, so I've been dying it interesting colours since high school. Since that was back in the 80's, I dyed it blonde and used food colouring to add streaks to match what I was wearing that day. It was so great when crazy coloured dyes became available! For a while I changed my hair colour every year or so, it's been every colour of the rainbow, sometimes all at once. Then I got stuck on blue for years, and now I'm stuck on turquoise. It's long and turquoise on one side, and black and short on the other. I love it!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:41 AM on September 29, 2018 [4 favorites]


My hair is one of the few parts of my appearance I've never really hated. What I really hate is going to the hairdresser.

It's thick, very slightly wavy and holds a curl well. For most of my life it was a dark, slightly reddish brown, and I didn't do much to it apart from using henna pretty regularly since I started going grey in my 20s and sometimes plaiting it when wet to get that pre-Raphaelite effect. I didn't have it cut until I was about 15, and wore it tin two very tight braids. That first cut was a disaster, and I didn't go near a hairdresser again until my 30s, but that was OK because it was the sixties. Other minor disasters include the 80s home perm and the time I thought it would be a good idea to dye it cherry red.

Nowadays, since I stopped dyeing it, it's a sort of ashy blonde, and almost waist-length. It hasn't seen a hairdresser in about eight years, mainly due to extreme lack of money, and I usually wear it up in a bun, and plait it when I go to bed, like a nice Victorian granny.

HOWEVER, this week, I should get my company pension at last and the hairdresser is on the list of extravagances I'm planning (along with nice gin, new underwear, stair carpet, new French windows and a mad spree in Lush). By next week, it should be a nice chin-length bob, with the front strands on both sides dyed blue=green. I can't wait!
posted by Fuchsoid at 5:37 AM on September 29, 2018 [6 favorites]


To all of the nice people who posted photos: I love your faces.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:09 AM on September 29, 2018 [9 favorites]


I am also a balding woman. I started losing my hair as a teenager. I didn’t grow any until I was three of four, so I had just about a decade of thick blonde hair that was frequently decorated with ribbons, bows made of chunky yard, and pompoms, what with it being the eighties and all. As a toddler, my mom would legit tape decorations to my head. I have a form of ectodermal dysplasia, though a milder case than Kid Ruki, who has been rocking the same toddler hair since she was a toddler, since it never grew more than that.

Right now, my hair is dyed that icy blonde, but I don’t like it much, so I’m going to do it lavender when I have the energy. Before this, it was pink. I’ve been into really gentle colors lately. I cut my own hair, usually once a year or so, usually when I’m processing some deep emotion. I also dye my own hair and I e been really digging Ugly Duckling products.

Kid Ruki has an enormous wig collection. I have one, but even though it’s the largest cap size I could find, it’s still a smidge too small for my giant noggin. For Reasons, shaving my head is not an option, but I hope to be able to afford a custom fitted wig before I don’t have enough hair left to hide my scalpy parts.

I have amazing beachy waves when I get out of the shower, but it dries straight and won’t a curl. I’ve had moderate success with a product whose name I can’t recall right now to keep some of the waves without my hair feeling crispy.
posted by Ruki at 6:34 PM on September 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


I had forgotten about chunky yarn hair bows. I used to wear Goody Hair Doodles. When they got too worn out to wear, they made great cat toys.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:51 PM on September 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


hey Ruki, here's a really easy, cheap, gentle way to get a soft colour into your blonde hair - get a tub of punky color, or whatever other fun colour you dig (I like punky color because it smells like grape candy) mix, like, a tbsp of it with about 2 tbsp of conditioner, and slather your head with it. leave it on for, maybe 15 minutes? then rinse, stay under the water for a nice luxurious time, I even comb my hair as the water flows over it to really work out the conditioner. You end up with soft, shiny, delicately coloured hair. Do this once a month or so, it gives you a lovely funky head of hair, and since you're using so little dye, it's easy to rinse out and clean up after.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 2:52 AM on September 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


My hair is dark caramel brown and wavy — silver in the fringe which started in my twenties. So it looks either boring or weird on this mostly Pacific Islander with a smatter of Spanish/Italian frame. When I was younger I dyed my hair blue black, cut with an Aeon Flux bob before she came along. Then in my 40s started working my way slowly through the crayon box. For the last few years, it’s been black cherry which my skin tones best. And it matches my lipsticks — winter and summer. But I still use my GHD faithfully because straight hair makes me feel pretty.
posted by lemon_icing at 12:05 PM on September 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


I grew up at a time when we all went to the barber every two weeks for that skint sided military cut, and that went on until ninth grade, when I decided to grow it out. It came in thick, with waves, and it grew so fast it was like it was running for its life.

I got it all the way down to my waist, looking like a Clydesdale's mane before I realized it took three days to dry and was just a total pain in the ass.

There was this barber from France at the mall who trained at Vidal Sassoon, and he took one look at it and me and I walked out with it about an inch long all over, and it hasn't gotten much longer than that in the ensuing forty years.

This has made turning gray, and then turning loose very easy to cope with. It's the damn eyebrows now. Every day.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 1:17 PM on September 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


I started growing my hair out in the summer of 2016, mainly because I was sick of the process of my hair looking fine for a few weeks (my wife always does a great job cutting it) but then getting too long and my bangs cover my forehead and it looks crappy and I don't want to bug my wife for ANOTHER haircut already.

Anyway, then Trump got elected and I said "I won't cut my hair until he's out" because I don't want anyone thinking I want to look more like a normie because of the current situation. So I'm stuck as a dirty hippie for the duration.

I grew my hair out as a teen, but right now it's longer than it's ever been, down to the bottom of my shoulder blades. Mostly I put it up in a bun, which annoys some people and thus pleases me. I should brush it more. My beard is getting more and more gray spots, but my hair is still a solid chestnut brown.
posted by rikschell at 2:50 PM on October 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


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