Are You Still Wearing Your Childhood Hairstyle?

Post by Sharon 

Life is funny when you come full circle. Perhaps you started out as a bald baby and find yourself bald in old age or your mom cuts you a pixie cut so you can play without hair in your face and in your 60s you realize you're wearing a pixie again. Let's look at the progression of hair throughout styles each decade and how we end up often times back where we started - 

My mom wouldn't let me cut my hair until sixth grade! She trimmed the ends, but kept it long which was a pain in the butt for a tomboy athlete. So, she cut me short bangs to keep it out of my face.

In my 50s, I realize I cut my bangs short and wear my hair long. 

High school in the 70s had me into the Farrah do. It took a bit of curling iron technique, but I truly loved how it bounced and stayed in place with lots of spray. The only problem was the color of my hair. It was not a redhead time period in history and blonds were everything. I was tempted to try blond, but then my family moved to the southwest and - --- 

Then, there was the time when my family moved to the Southwest, and I wanted to look like a local so I burned myself to death (with blisters as I'm fair) and wore Coppertone to get a tan and dyed my hair dark brown. When I went to school with the new hair color, the kids laughed. It really wasn't me. I looked quite odd. (holding my niece) 

In the 80s, I moved to the beach area in California and my hair went form wavy to CURLY. As it was the big 80s, I could finger tease my hair and it was huge. It felt like my decade for hair. 

By the time I was pregnant in my mid 20s, I was dyeing my hair medium brown for years to deaden the red and letting it grow long with bangs. Sound familiar? 

As a new mom, it was about shorter manageable length I could still put in a ponytail but not take time to maintain. Continuing the brown. My hair? I didn't care at this point as I didn't have time for me. 



I started a new career in the early 90s and cut it shoulder length to be easy to manage. Still loved the bangs for a few reasons - the main one being a cowlick on my center forehead that made my hair fall weird and to keep hair out of my eyes as my career involved typing medical records, bent over a keyboard all day. I felt like a neat business woman and grownup, but rather standard and boring. 

As my son was entering school age, I let my hair begin to grown longer again and used semipermanent brown on my hair, the red showing through. I was working from home, so I could ponytail my hair all day. Allowing the red to come back into my hair, my coloring suddenly made sense again. I had been dyeing it medium brown since I was 16 and never felt right about makeup and clothing colors. 

In the latter 1990s, I was more and more letting the red through and the hair super long. I didn't fight to style it but enjoyed the natural waves and curls that I used to fight in the past. This hair felt more like me than any other hair. the color was closer to my natural shade and I loved tumbling locks and have never liked straight hair.  It also was a form of rebellion to quit trying to tame my assets and be something I wasn't for my significant other. 

When I left my marriage in my late 40s, my hair grew to great lengths, the hair color was recaptured and I let it tumble into waves and curls as it wished. I didn't want to any longer tame anything about me. I let my artistic and creative sides run wild and my hair went along for the ride.

Just before menopause, my hair was thick, wavy, and back to my real childhood color again.

Ultimately in my mid 50s with hair thinning through menopause and being finer and more tangle prone, I began to pull it straight with a comb after washing, as I had done as a child. The hair texture is just like it was as a kid now that the hormones are down like they were as a child. Instead of fighting these things, I work with them. 

But, ultimate, it feels like I'm right back at square one again.