In homage to my previous posting , I must bring something to light, and it isn’t pretty, I’m going to come right out and admit it…., My name is Erin, (hi, erin) and I had BIG hair in high school,! Boy, was my hair big! And the worst part was I didn’t have to do much to make it big, it was natural! Now in my defense, big hair, as you probably know, was really… well, BIG in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I remember stores sold special hairspray to make it stay big so it didn’t deflate on you during history class. Girls would stand in front of the mirrors after gym with big brushes- spraying and teasing and ratting their hair so it would be big again. I have permanantly hairspray coated lungs from that! My hairspray of choice was “Bold Hold’… I wish they still made it. You could spray your hair, and go the whole day without doing anything to it, and even sometimes I’d wake up the next morning and not really have to do much to my big hair! Now all you can find in the stores are products to “tame the frizzies” and smooth the hair. Why would you want to do that~!
Each school had a different big hair trend. Some schools had girls with walls of bangs 6 inches high, like a big tsunami threatening to overtake their heads. At some schools, the trend was more for the “Oompa Loompa” look- wall of bangs curled back at the top, and two flares on the sides by the ears, making a sort of triangle look, with the back of the hair being flat. My school, West High, had a sort of combination look. Big bangs, flared sides, and teased back- an all-over kind of Big, and mine was about the biggest! But, when I moved to another school, all that changed….
Bingham high was a change for me. I was a junior, and pretty settled in my group of friends and social status at West High, but everything was new and different at Bingham. The worst part, there was a girl there with even bigger hair than mine! She was the queen of big hair. I was in awe of the depths her hair had… there seemed to be no end! True, at the end of a long day at school I would find a few pencils lost in my tresses, but SHE would find whole sandwiches, and small children! AND, to top it all off, it was a beautiful red color. Mine only had some hints of red. She was also a senior, so that earned her some automatic awe points as well. I quicly learned I had to do more than just poof my hair at this school to be noticed!
Sometime in college I surrendered to the changing fashions and started to tame the beast. It hasn’t been easy. My one-time status symbol has been quashed and beaten down, my identity stripped and flattened. Now, instead of fluffing with my fingers and letting the real me shine, I am forced to come and paste to conform to societies standards. Sometimes I get ready in a hurry and just blow dry my hair. Those times I have- without fail- been told, “Wow. Looking back at the 80’s are we?” or “Guns and Roses called, they want their hair back”. Ya, I’ve heard it all. Now that my hair is shorter, it isn’t so bad.
Now, I try to bring out my inner hair beast in other ways, such as coloring my hair in different colors quite frequently. It works for now, but someday it’s just gonna bust out like a bad 80’s movie, and say, “I’ve had enough! I will NOT be trampled upon any longer! I will NOT be molded into something I am NOT! I protest!!!!” So, when that day comes, and it WILL come my friends, it WILL come……. just remember that it’s really the hair that makes the person, not the other way around!
Each school had a different big hair trend. Some schools had girls with walls of bangs 6 inches high, like a big tsunami threatening to overtake their heads. At some schools, the trend was more for the “Oompa Loompa” look- wall of bangs curled back at the top, and two flares on the sides by the ears, making a sort of triangle look, with the back of the hair being flat. My school, West High, had a sort of combination look. Big bangs, flared sides, and teased back- an all-over kind of Big, and mine was about the biggest! But, when I moved to another school, all that changed….
Bingham high was a change for me. I was a junior, and pretty settled in my group of friends and social status at West High, but everything was new and different at Bingham. The worst part, there was a girl there with even bigger hair than mine! She was the queen of big hair. I was in awe of the depths her hair had… there seemed to be no end! True, at the end of a long day at school I would find a few pencils lost in my tresses, but SHE would find whole sandwiches, and small children! AND, to top it all off, it was a beautiful red color. Mine only had some hints of red. She was also a senior, so that earned her some automatic awe points as well. I quicly learned I had to do more than just poof my hair at this school to be noticed!
Sometime in college I surrendered to the changing fashions and started to tame the beast. It hasn’t been easy. My one-time status symbol has been quashed and beaten down, my identity stripped and flattened. Now, instead of fluffing with my fingers and letting the real me shine, I am forced to come and paste to conform to societies standards. Sometimes I get ready in a hurry and just blow dry my hair. Those times I have- without fail- been told, “Wow. Looking back at the 80’s are we?” or “Guns and Roses called, they want their hair back”. Ya, I’ve heard it all. Now that my hair is shorter, it isn’t so bad.
Now, I try to bring out my inner hair beast in other ways, such as coloring my hair in different colors quite frequently. It works for now, but someday it’s just gonna bust out like a bad 80’s movie, and say, “I’ve had enough! I will NOT be trampled upon any longer! I will NOT be molded into something I am NOT! I protest!!!!” So, when that day comes, and it WILL come my friends, it WILL come……. just remember that it’s really the hair that makes the person, not the other way around!
