I had long hair when I was younger and then my ex thought I looked better in short hair so I cut it and kept it short for quite a few years. I’m now finally getting it back to how I like it, its down past my shoulders and I’m going to continue growing it. I’m 37 and have no desire to have short hair again.
Side note: Lola you have beautiful hair, it would be sad if you cut it. Its the perfect style for you, it’s long and it frames, not hides your pretty face.
I’m over 40 and have long hair, past my shoulders, and plan to let it keep growing. I’m with Tabithina on this one – I’m going to wear my hair the way I like it. Yes, to the O.P., there is the idea that as a woman ages, she looks better if she cuts her hair. But I think this is just sexist b.s. left over from the '50’s. I agree many women look great with short hair; I even tried it myself a few years ago and it was a pain in my ass to take care of. My hair is thin and straight, and when it was short, I had to curl it somehow (curlers or curling iron) every day. With it long, I have many options. Today I just put it in a ponytail and braided it – easy. I have bangs for some softness around my face. Most days at the office, I put it in a French twist - takes about two minutes and looks sophisticated and business-like. On casual-dress Fridays, I wear it down, I crimp it and it looks full and (IMHO) sexy (crimping is sort of like using a curling iron; it puts littles waves in the hair, but it takes time.) So I say, if your wife likes long hair, tell her there are plenty of women out here over 35 who feel the same and aren’t going to let some archaic notions about age dictate how they should wear their hair.
So there. 
I believe the old custom was that a young girl wore short skirts and her hair down.
Then, when she turned about 16 or 17, she started wearing long skirts and putting her hair up. It was sort of a rite of passage, if you will.
After all, young boys used to wear short pants-knee britches. There’s a picture of my grandfather with his first pair of long pants. And that was in the 30s!
Women start losing hair (thinning and receding hairlines) about 40. Their hair is thinner and naturally breaks if treated roughly, like being permed, so it cannot be left long and straight without a lot of babying.
Show_Biz, I don’t where you get your info, but if there anything to what you say, you are generalizing. Perhaps some women do start to lose hair around 40 - after all many men (NOT ALL) suffer hair loss problems, so why not women. But I’m over 40, and I know many women over 40 who are not having trouble with thinning hair or losing their hair. When I said in my previous reply that I have “thin” hair, I meant it’s fine - not thick, and doesn’t hold a curl, and it’s always been that way. I don’t have to “baby” it - it’s in great condition (and I even lighten it).
I reiterate - Wildest Bill: I hope you can convince your wife to do with her hair (or anything else) whatever the hell SHE wants to do with it (and consider your preference too), and ignore generalizations about age and beauty.
My best lady friend cut her pubic hair off when she was 43.
We were talking about that right?
44 yrs young, hair to my mid back, no plan to cut it in the future.
It’s not thinning, it’s not brittle, and only the fewest grey hairs have just begun to appear.
It is WAY less work than when it’s short. As it’s naturally curly it is extrememly unruly when short and must be styled every morning. Long is soo easy, comb and tie with anything handy. I did cut it short once a few years back but it was a maintenance nightmare.
Whenever I travelled in the tropics it was wonderfully cool instead of a mop of curly hair like a wool hat!
I don’t know, but when did this tradition start anyway? I had one grandmother (born 1903) who always kept her hair in a bun except when she was getting ready for bed (it was waist-length). The other grandma (born 1901) was, I suspect, an ex-flapper. Her hair was short (below jawline but above the shoulders) all her life. My mom’s hair was long before she married in 1946, but she cut her hair short when she started having kids, and never had it long again.
I notice that in the movies, women don’t generally have short hairstyles until the late '40s/early '50s (years, not age). Is this just a misperception or did some cultural shift come along right about then?
~~Baloo
P.S.: My preference is for long hair on women. TW cut her hair short just as soon as we married, but seems to be growing it long now we’re divorced. Typical.
spoke wrote:
You betcha! And I agree - I believe there is pressure among women to get long-haired women to cut their hair. I have had this pressure put upon me plenty of time. Even when I was in my teens, my schoolmates would try to get me to cut my hair. (It was jealousy, I am convinced.) I have a 40-something friend with the most BEAUTIFUL, lush, thick blonde hair. She looks fabulous, but she is constantly pressured to cut it. She won’t, though!
I am a [sub]mumble-mumble[/sub] year old woman (I’m not that old, really!) and I have long hair. About to my waist. It’s not as rich or full as it was when I was 20, but still has plenty of gloss and body, and looks OK, down or up. It’s easy to take care of, as well. I just wash it, let it dry, and brush it and braid it. Or put it in a ponytail. It takes all of 5 minutes, if that.
When I was a small kid, my parents had all my long hair lopped off, against my wishes. I was “scarred for life”, and vowed I’d never have it that short again. It’s never been that short again. I have a male friend who is terribly dismayed whenever I even trim my hair. He is so worried that I’ll cut it off. He urges me to call him if I ever am tempted to cut it, so he can talk me out of it. He also claims that most women cut their long hair at the urgings of other women. He’s right.
well, the older I get the more the women at the office bother me about cutting my hair, or dying my hair, or just doing something else with it. When i wear it up, it looks quite business like, and they go on about how they would not have the time to fuss so and they are glad they have short hair. It is all BS. Putting my hair up takes 10 min at most before work. They spend better than that fussing with their hair at work.
Many women start feeling insecure with the pressure that other women apply and bow to it and cut their hair. Also some women are filled with self doubt about their increasing age, and they do something self destructive like have their hair cut. These women then are not happy if other women don’t doubt themselves so they become one of the harpies that tell other women to change themselves and the cycle continues.
If the women at work bother me enough, i buy food from the hot doog stand near work, aptly named Paradise Pup, and eat where they will be sure to smell it. Of course they are all on diets and never lose any weight that I can see. It drives them nuts to smell real food 
I like my long hair. My husband likes my long hair. It stays.
I am 38 years old and wear my hair to the middle of my back. I take very good care of it, it doesn’t look stringy or shaggy.
I have no plans of cutting it because I like the versatility it gives me. With short hair, you. . . well. . . you just have short hair. With long hair, you can braid it, pull it up in a pony tail or an up-do, curl it, leave it slick and long, scrunch it with gel, pull it into a twist, slick it back into a clip, the list goes on and on.
I pull it into a twist when going formal, pony tail when I wear jeans, and a combination of many things for the office.
Need I mention the unmentionably sensual thing I can do to a naked man’s body with my hair?
Nope, I have no plans to cut. No siree.
However, I am considering a change from a blonde bombshell into a firey redhead on my 40th birthday.
Maybe.
Where I live, most of the older women who keep their hair long are Pentacostals. Think beehive with 3 feet of long straight, thin hair teased and sprayed to the stiffness of uncooked pasta. OOUCH!
Then we have the image of the redneck country singer–think Loretta Lynn with the jet black dyed long hair. Cheap and ignorant screams this image.
The other stereotype I can think of is the old hippie lady–long straight gray hair, parted down the middle, split ends everywhere. This look isn’t too good on young girls with perfect faces–and it looks awful on older women with jowls or wrinkles.
Maybe these are some of the stereotypes that influence women to cut their hair. I cut mine to chin length because that looks best on me. I wear bangs and long straight hair and bangs make me look like I’m trying to look like a 5 year old at 44!
There are some ladies who look great with long hair who are over 40–Jacklyn Smith, Emmy Lou Harris (her hair is WOW!), and Linda Evans to name a few. Maybe it’s a matter of hair-grooming and keeping up with current fashions and matching the hair style to the face. If you have lank, long, steel gray, stringy hair surrounding a wrinkled, jowly, sun-spotted face it looks awful. Pure white hair pulled back in a cute bun looks cute as a button on many older women–think Helen Hayes. Lorretta Lynn ought to cut that nasty hair and find a more realistic hair color!
IMHO, of course!
Never! Nope, not going to do it, although I have recently had some of that previously mentioned co-worker pressure applied. I’m with Diane, I might check out red at some point, but no short hair for me.
Two things account for it all:
Most men perfer long hair.
Most women over 35 have given up on trying to do what men like, for a great variety of reasons.
Women give up on us? I thought they lived for us.
Afterall, most everything men do is for women. When we are young we try to make our bodies look the best. And when we get older we try to make alot of money for women to be still attracted to us. So at least they could do is is keep their hair long for us.
It’s sad, but my hair has been harder to keep long.
Many of my friends now routinely wear wigs, but I have never felt comfortable in one.
I think long hair looks much better on a woman, imho.
I would love long hair myself, but my hair does not grow out well. I have my hair cut very short by choice, but even with short hair people complain, my dad thinks I look like a thug cause I have my hair cut like an army cut. But that is my choice.
I think it is wrong for people to tell others to cut their hair purely because that is the way other people think it should be, it is the same with any aspect of appearance.
TTFN
Rick
I cut my hair short at age 35 because my mother said, hey, you’re middle aged now, you should have a more mature appearance. I immediately regretted it. Maybe it was the haircut, but I looked like somebody’s mother with that short 'do (not a nice way to look when you don’t have kidlings). Short hair isn’t very sexy; you can’t casually toss it over your shoulder; there’s nothing for men to run their fingers through (no dirty jokes, please). Now, 3 years later, my hair is back down to my waist, older men have stopped trying to pick up on me, younger men haven’t :), and I couldn’t be happier.
There are certainly ways to look very professional while keeping long hair. Think “Jane Goodall.”
I would like to second the ladies’ comments that long hair is easier to deal with. When I was around 15 I grew my hair out long, down to my neckline. It was actually quite easy to pull it back into a pony tail; then I had an extra place for my pencil too. The trouble was that along with my goatee, I looked like a comic-book store clerk. So I chopped it off, and now I find that unless I keep it quite short, I have no end of trouble with it. (It’s half-curly, half-straight: the result of having a Scottish father and a Korean mother.)