Saturday, October 13, 2012

The "Mane" Event

A recent visit to the beauty shop got me wondering, "Do women really have the right to choose?"  In light of the upcoming election, you may be thinking I'm referring to a woman's right to choose regarding the topic of abortion.  No, I'm not talking about the issue of pro life vs. pro choice.  We talk about things far more shallow than that on this blog.  The issue that I'm referring to involves a woman's hairstyle.  You know--the mane event.  Notice it's not called the man event.  So why do men dictate or influence how we choose to wear our hair? 

Please don't for a second think of me as a liberal feminist for posing this question.  In fact, I'm far from it.  I just feel a little perplexed at my boyfriend's negative reaction to the news that I had, once again, decided to chop off my hair.  We all know that most men love women with long, flowing locks, but let's face it--not all of us were blessed like Rapunzel or you know, Jennifer Aniston!  We have to do best with the hand (or more appropriately in this instance) the hair we've been dealt.  Men just don't seem to understand that not every woman can grow her hair halfway down her back and have it look as though she stepped out of Glamour Magazine. 

Besides my awful nose, I've inherited baby-fine, limp hair from the gene pool of my family.  It's okay--I've learned to live with it, and I'm forever on a quest to locate the "holy grail" of volumizing hair products.  They must exist--glossy magazine ads indicate that other women have stumbled upon them.  Thus far, I'll I've been able to successfully do is disappoint myself, lighten my wallet, and amass a stockpile of useless products that go under my bathroom sink to die.  As I've gotten older, I've determined that some of us (myself included) just weren't blessed with enviable heads of hair...but by golly, I'm going to cut and style my tresses in a way that best suits the hair I was given.

Though I've often had dreams where I've been the central character in a Pantene Pro V ad, I have always woken up to reality that I'm just a short-haired kind of girl.  I have a long face and an almost giraffe-like long neck, and short hair just looks better on me, and it happens to suit my personality.  Though my style has varied a little over the past decade, I always seem to return to the reverse-angled bob, which I must confess, I believe Victoria Beckham stole from me as I was rocking that style long before she had even shed the pseudonym of Posh Spice.

Though people have often asked me in the past who cuts my hair and my mom has reassured me countless times that it's always been her favorite cut on me, I have tried to grow it out---if nothing more than to please Jeremy.  While he prefers me tan and blonde, God created me a pale brunette.  When I pulled into his driveway yesterday, he reaffirmed his position that he had always hated my short hair.  I reminded him that the repeated bleachings last summer had taken a toll on my hair that I had been trying to grow out for nearly a year.  I really did give it the good old beauty college try.  I avoided the salon (save for the occasional trim) and even took biotin to help it grow.  It just didn't work for me.  Maybe had I forgone the bleach in favor of my natural brunette coloring, I wouldn't have needed to chop it off and start the growing-out process (yet AGAIN). 

While I may never fully admit it to Jeremy, I just may never have long hair again.  My high school days are over, and my hair is half as full as it was back then anyway.  Besides, in addition to the fact that I don't have the type of hair it takes to make men swoon, I also don't have the time it takes to achieve the look.  And it does take time.  We all know it's true--Truvy said so in Steel Magnolias:  "There is no such thing as natural beauty."  Women have to work at it.  Only celebrities have the luxury of carting around a personal hairstylist as though he was a chihuhua in her Louis Vuitton.  Us "regular folks" have to do it ourselves.  And until a magical hair genie pops out of a shampoo bottle and grants me fuller, thicker hair, I'm just gonna have to continue with the hairstyling ritual I've developed over the years.  Backcomb the $#*+ out of it and spray, spray, spray!  After all, every true Texas girl (despite her hair type) longs to have BIG hair.

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