14 Days Till 30: Good Hair

| Posted by Lou | The time is 4.16pm here in London UK |



Good Hair. Something I have strived for my whole life. I started out well with a full head of long, curling, golden-blonde hair. Then it started to get out of control.

Then I got that haircut - the one when I was 12-years-old that looked like a mop (I know this because other kids in my school helpfully shouted "mop!" at me to let me know) and turned my tresses brown and straight.

Then as I grew it longer it became frizzier and more out of control (again, this one was eventually helpfully made known to me after I enquired of a school-"friend" who this "baff" person I hear so much about was, to be told it was me).

And suddenly it seemed like Good Hair was a distant dream that would never be reality to me, as I made the mental shift towards being somebody who has Bad Hair.

I was flicking through old photos last night to find examples of the different attempts at controlling my hair, and discovered that there is a distinct pattern in my attempts to "do my hair":





Yep, the good old "just shove it in a bun" approach to hair. A sure sign of someone who has no idea what the fuck to do with it. (And probably better than the "wear it down to show off the straggly dead ends" option...)

But before you all suggest different ways of doing hair, please let me interject with the fact that in reality I spend about 5 minutes on my appearance in the morning, of which 20 seconds is devoted to my hair. I then pull it out, put it back in, pull it out, put it back in about a thousand times throughout the day.

I had a moment the other day when I was in a meeting involving our Managing Director and had pulled my hair out of its bun and was flicking it around my fingers and playing with my hair-tie, and I realised the MD was looking at me strangely.

At which point I finally clicked that Real Adults don't sit there playing with their hair at work. They do their hair, and they leave it like that all day (whether it's in or out).

So now that I'm a nearly-30-year-old I probably need to crank up the Good Hair quest so that I can have hair so good that I neither need to spend time on it in the morning, nor fiddle around with it all day.

I guess Step 1 was dying it red, to give it a bit of inherent oomph.

Step 2 is to get it cut more often (when I got it cut last Friday it was 7 months since the last cut (yes, my ends were disgustingly dead)), and get it cut better.

Step 3 is to stop resting on the adequacy of my satisfactory hair product (a curl crème that is better than all of the previous products I have ever tried, but not great) and seek the holy grail (great curl crème).

Step 4 is to use all the various subtle methods of keeping it moisturised (Bel said to towel dry before using conditioner, I had added to this putting a shower cap on over the conditioner and leaving for at least 4 minutes).

And Step 5 is to stop fiddling with it.

In the meantime, I am challenging myself to go from now to my 30s without a single use of "shove it in a bun".

6 thoughts on “14 Days Till 30: Good Hair”

  1. I remember sitting in the Pit with you and Paula in 2005 and the two of you saying you were dying to get Lisa from Just Teasing to fix your hair. She's still the only person I've ever met who is able to cut my hair so it sits how it should. Though nowadays I must leave my hair in the hands of my flatmate, since she only charges a bottle of beer, and even though I insist I'm 'growing' my hair, I end up with it chin length every time...

    Still, having always had short-ish hair, if I did ever manage to grow it long I'm sure the only thing I'd do with it would be to 'shove it in a bun'. And then I'd wistfully remember my cute bob and have it cut off again...

    I hear YouTube is a wonderful source of all kinds of tutorials... perhaps there are some step by steps of fabulous Joan hair out there, waiting for you?

  2. Oops I wonder what the other photo was that should have been where I have a double-up...?


    I gave up on the Joan dream when I once read an interview with the hair stylist who started talking about the fake hair they have to insert, the amount of straightening that goes on, etc etc... I think it's something ridiculous like 2 hours!!

  3. Regular haircuts are one of those sad inevitable truths: it does make a difference.

    I try and drag it out as long as I can btwn salon visits - but that generally means that me looking like a scraggy mess outweighs any positive feelings I was getting from saving my pennies.

    RE your Step 3 (the seeking of the holy grail AKA satisfactory hair product): lordy, good luck with that one. I am slowly learning that I need to ask people with similar hair to me what they use, and not just get sucked in by a label written in a combo of random French words and pseudo-science babble.

  4. 1.5 hours of watching YouTube hair tutorials later...

    Found one to do the Paloma Faith style that originally led to my hair colour - conveniently 60s-esque for my Beatles party, woop woop.

  5. She has great style but something about that Super Kawaii lady drives me mental!! haha

    I was jealous when her hair was lookin all Bride of Frankenstein though! maaaan

    Lou - can't wait to see pics! Send us through some drunken rehearsal snaps teehehhhee ;)