Good Hair Day

I was in the beauty salon chair recently, getting my hair trimmed, when the scent of a permanent wafted by the chair in which I was sitting. The smell of that perm took me back to when I was a little girl. 

My mom always gave herself home perms back in that era. I can recall her dividing her hair into sections, then wrapping each section meticulously around little rods, securing them into place and then dripping permanent solution from a squeeze bottle horizontally over each of the rods. The scent of a home perm was unmistakable in that era. When she was done and her hair was dried and brushed through, Mom would emerge with lovely curly locks. Like me, her hair wasn't naturally curly, yet she wanted that look, so permed hair it was.

My mom with her pretty head of permed curls and me with a bullfrog (but that's a story for another day - If you're intrigued, see my August 21, 2018 blog post: My Dad, the Snake Man - Part Two).

As a little girl, I was fascinated by Mom's hair. Sometimes, she grew it out slightly to form a French twist in the back of her head, which I always told her made her look like the female lead television star from The Honeymooners, Audrey Meadows. 

Sometimes, Mom's hair would be short and permed. Sometimes it would be dyed one color, at other times another color. My dad, who traveled for his work, would wait for us to join him during one of my school breaks. He would always joke that as we got off of the plane, he'd have to watch for me first because he wasn't sure he'd recognize my mom. He'd laugh that he didn't know what color or style her hair would be in when we arrived. Until her hair turned a beautiful white when in her 50s, Mom colored her hair because she didn't care for its natural shade, which she often referred to as an unattractive "dishwater blonde." No matter what color her hair was, natural or chosen, I always saw my mom as the most beautiful woman in the world.

Personally, I haven't felt the need to color my hair. Mine is naturally a brunette shade, just like my Dad's was. He didn't begin to show real signs of gray until he was in his 60s. I am following in his footsteps.

Only once did I let a friend "paint" some highlights in my hair when I was in college and that ended up producing some interesting red-colored results. Once was enough.

In addition to perming, my Mom was adept at pin-curling my hair when I was a little girl. She used either some little silver metal clips or bobby pins, as well as a slather of pastel-colored Dippity-Do hair-styling gel. This process created little "spit curls" (such an attractive name for them) over each ear.

Mom also trimmed my bangs, usually by placing tape across my forehead to secure my hair in place and then snipping right under the tape line using her sewing scissors. That exercise resulted in straight bangs--most of the time.

That's not to say I didn't get my hair cut at a salon, too. In fact, in some of my more independent moments, I was able to walk the few blocks from elementary school to Betty's Beauty Bar where I would meet my mom to get my hair trimmed. I always felt grown up stepping foot into that beauty parlor, as we called it back then.

Here I am at about seven or eight years old, a salon of choices on one head:
spit curls, a ponytail and home-trimmed bangs.

As a little girl and then as a teenager, I liked fiddling with my hair, trying new styles and using the latest gadgets that my Mom found useful. I was particularly thrilled when my Dad came home one day with a portable hair dryer, the kind that made me feel like a movie star. I can still remember the feeling of the elastic from the plastic cap on my head, the warm air blowing my hair around underneath. There was very little assembly required with these contraptions other than to put one end of the hose into the base of the cap. It all fit neatly into a little round suitcase. There was even a little mirror in the tufted lid to make sure you looked beautiful when you came out from under the cap.

Here I am at age four, all smiles as I sit under our fancy, new portable hairdryer.
I must have felt the need to entertain myself while under the dryer
 by playing music on my little, red plastic melodica.

As I got older, my hair went from pixie cut to long tresses parted on the side or, as was popular in the 1970s, parted in the middle, which actually made me look quite dreadful (but at least I fit in with all of the other girls who wore their hair the same way and surely looked more attractive than I).

When my junior high school French class spent a month in Europe, I came home with a shorter hairdo, a souvenir of my travel experience. From then on, I seemed to need a series of implements, gadgets and goop to keep my hair in place--everything from blow dryers to curling brushes and irons to hair sprays and gels. I was a walking salon.

Things changed, however, when I underwent chemotherapy for cancer treatment two times while in my 30s. It was strange to lose all of the hair on my head, as well as my eyelashes. After being used to seeing dark hair around my face, I suddenly looked like a foreign being anytime I glanced in the mirror. I finally had my head shaved so I didn't have to deal with the stress of having my hair fall out in clumps when I washed it, risking that it would clog the drain, or as I slept at night, causing my pillowcase to look like it had grown a layer of fur. I wore wigs each time I became bald, and although they were nice, neither felt like me.

When my hair grew back in, I realized that simply having hair made every day a "good hair day." The regrowth of my hair reminded me to be thankful of my blessings every day. After the second bout with chemo, my hair even came back in curly for a little bit-- my "chemo perm," as I used to call it.

As a result of my chemotherapy-induced hair loss twice in my adult life, I decided to wear a no-fuss hairdo going forward, one I could simply wash, comb and go. Long gone now are the implements, doodads and products I used to use to style my hair. I am simply happy just to have hair and to look like myself, even with a little gray peeking out or streaking here and there. 

Sporting my "chemo perm" and a grateful heart just to have hair again, I jumped for joy.

So, the message here is that if you have lots of hair, no hair, permed hair, straight hair, long hair, short hair, thick hair, thin hair, whatever kind of hair, remember that when you look in the mirror, every day is a "good hair day." Indeed, every day is a good day when you choose to make it that way.