I have had bad hair
days for decades, long before the term was even coined.
I was an adorable toddler
(if it's true that cameras don't lie); but my adorableness (okay,
so I can coin words, too) was a fact despite rampant ringlets
that stuck out crazily all over my head, dipping over mid-forehead,
and receding at the temples — the hairline of a middle-aged
man, which I have to this day.
Yes, I did say ringlets;
and yes, I do have naturally curly hair. "You're so lucky!" say
my friends whose sleek locks I would trade my Jaguar for —
that is, if I had a Jaguar. They assume that since my hair has
a natural curl, it will fall into any style I wish. Wrong!
If it did, would I look like this? On purpose?
As others who are similarly
cursed know well, naturally curly hair does its own thing. You
can wind it around huge rollers for hours, soak it in anti-frizz
solution, and spray it with enough industrial strength glop to
coax it into different configurations; and it may work —
for three minutes and 42 seconds, tops. After that, it goes Boing!
and springs right back to its original, unruly state. And if there
is just a trace of humidity in the air, you can even forget about
the three minutes and 42 seconds.
Unfortunately, it has
taken me almost my entire life to realize that. God knows why.
Obviously, I was in denial. I battled my tenacious tendrils for
years and spent enough on hair-smoothing products to support all
the wives and children of a colony of bigamists before I finally
"got" it and stopped trying to reverse nature.
I'm not any happier
about the way I look, but at last I've learned to accept it and
go with it — to a point. I definitely have stopped trying
to straighten my hair, but I still haven't completely given up
my attempts to shape it to my liking. I do this by mercilessly
snipping off any wayward coil that spoils the symmetry I am trying
to achieve. The results, as you can imagine, are often quite interesting
and have been known to launch many hairdressers into fits of hysteria.
I recall, in particular,
a stylist on the Champs Elysees. I was vacationing in beautiful,
sophisticated Paris, where I felt definitely unchic. I decided
to splurge and treat myself to a Parisian "do." When Monsieur
François sat me down to assess what he had to work with,
he paled. For a moment, I was afraid he was going to faint. "Who
did this to you?!" he demanded, his eyes misting, his voice trembling.
Do you think I was going to admit the disaster was self-inflicted?
Not on your life. "A hairdresser back home," I lied. His next
comments, though in French which was beyond my rudimentary grasp,
left no doubt that he was condemning all American hairdressers
to a special hell. Poor François had met his match. Two
hours and several hundred francs later, I didn't look much better.
I left Paris.
Unfortunately, my
next trip was to a tropical Paradise — Maui to most people;
Frizz City to me. How I envied the lovely Hawaiian girls their
satiny long manes that undulated in the sultry breezes as gracefully
as did their grass skirts.
Today curls, as well
as sleek and smooth tresses, are in. Some women (and a few men)
actually have corkscrew permanents. Go figure. Too bad I wasn't
born into this era. Just thinking about the time, money and aggravation
I could have saved myself — and still been fashionable —
is enough to make my hair stand straight on end.
Yeah, right. Wishful
thinking.
Rose Mula was an executive
assistant, a public relations specialist, and an operations manager
for a New England dinner theater chain before discovering a passion
for writing. She has written business and trade articles to earn
a living, and humor for the fun of it. Her work has appeared in
Yankee, Modern Maturity, The Christian Science Monitor, The
Reader's Digest, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Saturday Evening
Post, The Miami Herald, and more than six dozen other magazines
and newspapers. She can be contacted through email.
