Okay, I have a problem. And the first step in recovery is usually acknowledging that you have a problem. However, I honestly don't think my obsession with hair will ever go away or even diminish in the slightest. Only my stylist fully understands…
My father recently gave me a bunch of photos from my baby years, and I had to laugh at all the pictures of me barely able to walk, yet skillfully wielding a little purse as if I had been born with it. Yep. The girlie-girl in me revealed herself at a very early age.
Ever since I was a kid, I have been obsessed with hair. I blame my grandmother for contributing to the development of my fixation. She was, before marrying my grandfather, a stylist. Actually she was called a beautician, but you get my meaning. She had quit the salon biz when she had children, and raising her 5 kids was plenty of work, so you know she never had time to fool around with their hair. But when I came along, Granny had plenty of free time to play "dress up."
With Granny's help, it wasn't long before I progressed from accessorizing outfits to developing a full-on hair fanaticism. Granny would meticulously braid my long hair every night (I lived with her for a time while my parents got their acts together) so that in the morning I would wake up with this massive curly mane that was the envy of every girl in the 4th grade. After my mom and dad resumed their parental duties, I didn't have Granny there to braid my hair nightly, and God knows my mother couldn't be trusted to do it, so Granny gave me a perm. I think I had a perm from age 11 to 19.
Then I went off to college and couldn't afford the upkeep of a perm, so I then went through a period of "growth" where I chopped off all my hair and allowed it to grow in straight. I never really liked it, so I then started coloring my hair every hue of the rainbow. Honestly. My favorite color was pink. But with dark brown hair, in order to get those shades of pink that I loved, I had to first bleach my hair. You can imagine how after several bleachings that my hair started to...disintegrate. I would grab a handful of hair and it would just crumble like wet hay. So, I then had to shave my head. You got it. A Sinead O'Connor. Unfortunately, I looked more like a marine than a beautiful Irish singer. I invested in a number of hats.
That experience taught me to work with what I have, rather than trying to morph my hair into unnatural states. However, my obsession with hair never waned. Instead of perming and coloring my hair, I started cutting it, and cutting it, and cutting it. I was lucky enough to find a brilliant stylist here in Los Angeles who fully understood my neurotic obsession with hair, and she has helped me to put down the scissors, and let the professionals do the work. I have fallen off the wagon a couple of times, but my stylist never lectures me. She simply fixes the mess I’ve made and sends me on my merry way. She's gotten used to me coming into her salon with a cut-out from a magazine of a hairstyle I've become infatuated with. She studies it for a few minutes and then sets out to recreate the do on my own head. It always looks fabulous when she's done.
Then, I am on my own and have to try to mimic her brilliance at home. It never looks the same. Take, for instance, my experience this past Saturday. I brought in a photo of Meg Ryan that I’d printed off the internet. My stylist worked her magic, and voila, a perfect Med Ryan do, which I haven't been able to recreate since. Oh, I know that absolutely no one knows it doesn't look right except for me. But I really don't care what other people think. I care what I think. And I don’t think I look the least bit like Meg Ryan. Instead of a cute soft, shag I'm sporting what looks like a Texan beauty pageant contestant's bouffant.
So, here I am working through my issues with hair. I doubt I will ever be free of my hair-mania, but at least I know I have a problem. And that’s the first step, right?
Ciao,
Lucie
P.S. What issues/obsessions do you have? Come on. I know we all have them.
