I am so tired of my hair.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Has anyone mentioned how good your hair would look if you blew it vaguely straight after a wash? Really, it would! And it would suit your face too. At the salon, the professionals usually use a round brush and the ‘focus-blow’ attachment thingy to get this effect. Well, that’s an awful lot of trouble to replicate at home, requires bizarre contortions and causes a lot of anguish in front of the mirror.

Easy solution: Get a hair-dryer with an attachable comb, and then comb outwards from under the hair. This is Blowdrying For Dummies (like me) and requires the hand-eye coordination of a newt. For even neater hair, clip up the top half of it and dry it in two separate sections - layer one at the bottom and then layer two on top. This sounds like a lot of trouble, but really it’s not after you’ve done it three or four times. Also, what Alice the Goon said about length not being for everyone. If you’re worried about dryness in the hair, use a light conditioner after every wash and on the weekends, use a hair mask. (I usually do a battleground in World of Warcraft or read the newspaper while the mask does its thing.)

None of this is as time-consuming as it sounds. You just have to practice a couple weeks and you’re set for life. I mean, very few of the women who walk around with ‘perfect hair’ get it without spending some time on it. It’s a trade-off for most of us - 5 minutes fiddling with the hair everyday or a somewhat lacklustre look.

(Hijack: Do you use eyeliner pencils or other such goop? I hope you do because you have good eye-shape and great colour. It would light up your entire face.)

22

Maybe it isn’t your hair, but what you are doing with it. Might I suggest a site like www.longhaircommunity.com

I have long hair with bouts of shortness. All I’m good at is talking and growing hair, so a drastic cut isn’t a big deal to me.

I have to tell you though, there are so many things that you can do with your hair at virtually any length. Part of my problem (default pony tail) is that I didn’t know how to DO a lot of the things that can style my hair differently. The thing is, going into a community like I linked to above, you can find out how to do different looks, how to use a dizzying array of hair styly thingies. I used to have a few barrettes and a metric crapload of ponytail holders. Now? I’ve got bows and sticks and two types of bobby pins, hair donuts and all manner of assorted goodies.

And? I can make a beehive! Learning to play with your hair is fun. It can be as cheap or expensive a hobby as you like.

Did I mention I do a lot of things with my daughters hair and everyone in her class (teachers/lunch ladies included) love to see what we’ve done. Trust me, getting a 3 year old to hold still isn’t a picnic.

The other great thing about that site is that you can classify your hair and talk to people who have exactly the same issues you have and of course, listen to folks who are green with envy for YOUR hair type. Crazy, eh?