Styling…The Good Ole Days…

Yesterday was a bad hair day…it was just one of those days…the front looked okay…but…the back…it was obviously sticking out in unflattering directions…the only problem was…I didn’t check the back…until…it was too late…I was already dressed and made-up…there was no turning back…

I dampened…I smoothed…I sprayed…it would…do…it didn’t look too bad…it just didn’t look good…either…oh well…

But…it got me to thinking…how easy it is for me to get up now and wash my hair…the whole process doesn’t take more than ten minutes…it’s so short and thin…I don’t even blow-dry it…it’s fluff and go…

But…that wasn’t always the case…

There was the time…that for some reason…we tend to call the good ole days…when I would never have considered the possibility of washing my hair in the morning…regardless of how bad it looked…

First of all…there was drying time…at least an hour…depending on the length and thickness of your hair…under the bonnet dryer…

Well…maybe that wasn’t first…first was the rolling time…hair had to be rolled before it was dried…for longer…straighter…styles…we often used orange juice cans…at least in the crown…and the largest rollers we could buy for everywhere else…made it hard to get the bonnet on…

After the hair was dry…if you wanted it even straighter…you could either iron it…that’s right…with a hot iron…and wax paper…I think…I never actually did that…or you could roll the crown on the orange juice cans…and wrap the rest of the hair around your head…secure it with a few bobby pins…put on a hairnet…or your panties on your head if you didn’t have one…and sleep that way…

Although that sounds complicated…the straight styles were probably the easiest…curlier styles required sleeping in some sort of curlers overnight…

When we were little…Mama used to do spit curls…that was strands of hair twisted into flat curls…and secured with a bobby pin X…again…covered with a hairnet or panties…

As we got older…we attempted to sleep on rollers…that’s right…roll all over…secure with clips and bobby pins…cover with a hairnet or panties…and go to bed…

I said attempt…because…I don’t think we slept very well…so…someone invented…pink sponge rollers…they were really cool…they were first of all sponge…and soft…and had a built in clip that went over the curler…and snapped in place…quite often leaving these bent looking places in your hair the next day…anyway…you covered them with a hairnet or panties…and went to bed…

We had bathroom drawers…and caddies…filled with curlers of all different sizes for different styles…

Oh…and I didn’t mention the…go to the beauty shop once a week and get your hair teased and sprayed so stiffly that it would stay in for a week…style…of course you had to cover it with a hairnet or panties every night…just too protect it…oh…and you may have wrapped toilet tissue around it as well…hmmm…

My…how times have changed…and…honestly…I’m glad they have…we can talk about the good ole days all we want…but…this morning…I’m just sort of grateful that I can hop in the shower…and wash my hair…in no time flat…and that’s probably all I will do to it…

And…while I know…in many ways…those days of old were kinder and gentler…I’m really glad I’m not going to bed with panties on my head…I mean really…what were we thinking…get a hairnet…girlfriend…get a hairnet…

Jane