Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow



Okay, guys, I’m going to talk about hair styles today, so the gents reading this will likely want to leave now. But I hope you don’t. Because I intend to aim part of this post at the masculine gender.

First of all, I’m getting my hair cut today, which explains the topic. For the better part of a year, I’ve been trying to grow my hair out. My mom seems to think that any woman over the age of 35 or 40 should wear her hair short. And I did for a lot of years, simply because it was easier. The busier I became, the shorter my hair. Not that I’m not busy now, but I just wanted to break the mold, rebel against my mom (how often do I still get to do that???), and give long hair one last shot before I become a full fledged crone.

It’s still not “long.” I’d call it medium. And I’m not ready to surrender to the shears just yet. My big debate has been: bangs or no bangs.

Yeah, deep subject matter. Not.

My hair dresser has convinced me to let my bangs grow out. I’d worn bangs, whether my hair was long or short, since high school. The sight of my forehead in the mirror makes me cringe. But I’ve noticed that NO one wears bangs anymore. Everyone, it appears, is doing the same thing I am. Growing the suckers out and trying unsuccessfully to tuck them behind an ear, only to have them constantly falling in our eyes.

The only way I can see to write is to wear a headband.

The other night, I decided to put it to a vote here. I planned to post a photo of me with my currently exposed forehead and let the Working Stiffs readers share their opinions about whether or not I should keep this look or go back to hiding behind my bangs.

I set up my tripod, set my Nikon for the remote release, and shot over 60 pictures of myself in the hopes of finding ONE that my ego would allow me to share here.

Please note, there are no photos posted.

And this, my friends, pushed me over the edge. There will be no vote. By 3:30, I will once again have bangs.

I don’t know that they’ll help, but egads, those photos were hideous.

My husband (who hates to be written about) is having similar issues. (See, I promised something for the guys!) His issues aren’t with his forehead, however. His forehead has extended to the back of his head for more than a decade. There are no bangs in his future. However, he recently shaved his beard.

He and I have been together for over 30 years and this was the first time I’d seen his face. And I like it! He has dimples! Who knew???

Well, he says he knew. But I didn’t.

It took me some time to get used to seeing him bare-faced. He says he still isn’t used to it. But he only sees himself when he looks in the mirror. I see him all the time. It makes it easier for me to get used to it. He looks a lot younger. A LOT younger. Some folks are calling him “baby face.” Please. He doesn’t look THAT young.

Anyhow, he still isn’t convinced that he’s staying with the naked face thing.

I think it must be like me and my bangs-or-no-bangs decision. We both want to cover up part of our face.

He says about half the people who have seen him like the new look. The other half wants him to grow the beard back. I told him that their votes don’t count. Mine does. The only person’s vote that counts more than mine is his. When I told him this, he replied with a resounding “YES.”

Which means, if he decides to grow the beard back, I’m out of luck. Frankly, if he told me he liked me without bangs, I’d keep on wearing this stupid headband.

But he’s a wise husband who keeps his mouth shut about such decisions.

So tell me, does anyone else out there hide behind their hair? Literally or figuratively?  

19 comments:

Joyce Tremel said...

I've been growing my hair out, too. I haven't even had it trimmed since August. I hate my hair no matter what length it is--it's too thick to do anything with, and I don't like taking more than five minutes to style it.

As for your hubby--I vote for NO beard. Especially if he has dimples.

Annette said...

Is there a woman alive who does like her hair??? Hating our hair seems a universal thing.

Joyce, I think your hair always looks nice.

Joyce Tremel said...

Thank you. You always look mahvelous my dear.

Annette said...

Maybe we should swap hair?

Gina said...

Annette -
I'm a woman. I'm alive. And I LOVE my hair!
I think the difference is that I don't think of my hair as an adornment to enhance my beauty. [You've seen me. 'nough said.] I think of it as a link to my past and a plaything for my present. One of the greatest joys of my childhood was brushing my grandmother's long grey hair. It was brittle. She had dandruff. But I loved the feel of it. The length of it - she'd never had it cut. My mother was a short hair person, so she always kept my hair less than shoulder length. When I was fourteen, I had a short "bubble" cut and it occurred to me that it's a terrible thing to need a mirror to see your own hair. I've been growing it ever since. I spent many boring hours in high school classes braiding individual strands. I still play with it a lot. Not formal play like we females are supposed to do - trying styles - but just wrapping it around my fingers and pretending it's a brush. Silly stuff. I've even used it as a makeshift dental floss in an emergency. My ex-husband Terry had long hair, too - one of his good points. I love hair, soft, shiny, swaying hair. I love it!

Anonymous said...

Annette, as a woman with perpetually long, flaming red hair and a forehead my mother wickedly told me was too "high" when I was a mere teen, I completely get the bang dilemma! I also get the mom-rebellion about cutting it short. In the last year I went from below shoulders to above ears.
Yuck.
It's growing back and over 50 or not, I like it longer! Now, the bangs/no bangs issue...you tell me the next time we see each other!
Rose

Ramona said...

Put me firmly in the "I hate my hair" column. I have bangs now--I hate them. For a while, I didn't have bangs-I hated that.

I am hopeless about hair. Here is the only useful advice I can offer: Don't get a mullet.

Liz Milliron said...

I like the texture of my hair - soft and shiny, although I've always wished it had more curl. I too, however, did the "bang thing" for years. Right now, they're really long and I'm doing the "push it out of your face all the time" thing, as you may have noticed at the Christmas party.

It was long for years - most of my school and college years. Then I went shorter. That was okay, but terribly dull. Now it's shoulder length, and that's a good compromise length for me.

What I *don't* like? It's going gray. Oh, you probably can't tell - almost 20 years of L'Oreal and Clairol have hidden that fact (at one point it was auburn). But after my last at-home trial, I've decided I'm sick of the home hair-color experience. And having it done professionally is obscenely expensive.

So my debate is: keep color or let it go gray? Part of me thinks I'm still not old enough for gray (I just turned 38), part of me says the hell with vanity. I don't know.

Incidentally, my husband just went the other way with the beard. After being clean shaven for 20 years (mostly because the Army made it inconvenient to have a bear), he is growing a goatee. I told him I was okay with it, unless he planned to go all Brett Kiesel on me. And it is totally silver - not a red hair to be seen. =)

Annette said...

Gina, I adore your hair. I often wish I'd never cut mine. And I'm envious of your entirely too healthy attitude about it. :-)

Rose, coffee. We must steal some time away to meet for coffee!

Ramona, no mullet. I promise.

Annette said...

Mary, you aren't alone in pushing your bangs out of your face. I've been people watching a lot lately and this is definitely the style. Pushing them out of your face is the side effect of the trend.

As for going gray, I hear you. I don't have a LOT of gray. The color you see is pretty much my natural color. I spray some Sun In on it to give me some "natural" highlights, but otherwise haven't colored it. Yet. But the grays are there and I hate them. Just not enough to go through what you're talking about. Messy home job or expensive salon job.

But I have two boxes of hair color here in my closet and I've been threatening...

As for the beard, when I first met my hubby, his beard was pretty close to Brett Kiesel's! At least it was soft then. Now it's prickly.

And it does hide those cute dimples.

Ramona said...

Mary, my husband is a redhead as well. A few years ago, I came home from a family trip and told him my brother-in-law had grown a goatee, and it looked so cute on him. Weeks later, my husband's growing a goatee--not that those two things were in any way related, nuh-huh, oh no.

Anyway, his hair keeps getting lighter, almost strawberry blond now. No gray. The goatee is streaked with gray. He has a baby face, so it makes him look older. He's several years younger than me, so I don't mind.

Karen in Ohio said...

Annette, I like your bangs, if it makes any difference.

A few years ago I had an accident that laid open the skin just above my right eyebrow, so now I have a scar. Hard to see, but a scar, anyway. And then the following year a rock hit me in the temple (yeah, it was too close for comfort), on the other side, also leaving a scar. So now I have bangs, probably forever.

My hair is pretty good. It is fine but thick, and has great body. There's quite a bit of wave, but luckily the straightening irons today are super good. And while I'm getting greyer and greyer, it's well dispersed and looks more like silver highlights. Good thing, since I'm way too lazy--and cheap--to keep up with coloring it.

My husband has a mustache and when we were dating he periodically grew beards. One time he came home from a long trip. When he left he'd had a full beard, and while shaving it off he accidentally nicked his mustache, so he took that off, too. When he came to pick me up for a date I didn't recognize him, and slammed the door in his face!

A few years ago he shaved off his mustache so he could be a distressingly accurate Dopey to my Snow White. Our grandson was a baby then and he wouldn't have anything to do with that scary man! Of course he grew it back, thank goodness. I much prefer the tickler!

I can't believe I didn't get to meet Joyce last year at Mystery Lovers. Rats.

Joyce Tremel said...

I have A LOT of gray. No one will ever see it.

Annette said...

Karen, you'll just have to come back to the Festival of Mystery in 2012!

Patg said...

I'm in the 'I can't control my hair' category. It does what it wants and it will NOT go to lengths. So medium is the best I've ever been able to achive. I keep wanting bangs, it won't go.
Of late, I've been having it cut shorter and shorter, but won't go the whole route with the top. A little length there.
COLOR? I've been doing my hair since I was 15. You'd think I was Scandanavian when I was young, but I turned to that mousy, dishwater and that I dislike. Grey? Never, however I am developing white streaks.
A trip to the hair dressers is the best part. Don't forget those eyebrow waxing and massage.
NO Beard, have bangs if they suit you. Just watching all those starletts on TV shows Constantly brushing back their hair to the detrement of their acting, is enough for me to say GET Bangs!
Patg

Karen in Ohio said...

Did anyone else see Lady Gaga's Thanksgiving program? (If you missed it, you missed something way more fabulous than I ever dreamed it would be.) She was talking about wigs, etc., and that she's always been self-conscious about her forehead. Which is one of the reasons she wore wigs.

My captcha word is "preti". So appropriate!

Liz Milliron said...

Annette, my hair color now is kind of what it was when I was young. Then in college I decided to be a red-head; stayed that way until I was 35. Now it's a darker brown, liberally shot with silver. If I could only go gray like Emmy Lou Harris! A lot will depend on whether or not Paul signs off on the salon bill. I do intend to get my brows waxed again!

Ramona, my husband is strawberry-red. There is a touch of silver in the sideburns, but he still cuts his hair military short on the sides, so you barely see it. He is old than I am; he'll be 48 next year. So the beard makes him look is real age - finally. =)

Annette said...

Well, the deed is done. I once again have bangs.

Jenna said...

I always end up with the same hairstyle. Straight down to the shoulders, parted on the side. Sometimes I cut it short, and then grow it out until it's shoulder length and parted on the side. Sometimes I grow it a little longer and then cut it back until it's shoulder length. Bangs and I don't get along because they grow out and then they get in my eyes until they get long enough to tuck behind my ear. Sometimes I cut them, and then - you got it - grow them out until they're shoulder length and straight and parted on the side. I notice I tend to go a little shorter now that I'm a little older, but it's still the same damn haircut. I'll probably have it when I die.