Anyone with fabulous hair should just do good-hair-people activities right about now. This piece is not for you. I’m speaking for a marginalized, nearly invisible minority victim group: the Thin-Haired (hey, everyone else is getting in on the grift biz: Bogus argument + public boo hoo = $$$$).
My hair had always been dark blonde and mostly normal in scalp coverage, give or take a few lean years in college when I ate only peanuts and tuna (who knew nutrition affected stuff? It was the 70s and we were idiots). Later, in my early 30s and pregnant with both kids, my shoulder-skimming mane was 90s Candice Bergen explosive (and I have pics to prove it). Turns out eating well, exercising, and taking prenatal vitamins are good for you!
And yet. Throughout my best hair years, I was an addict. Yes. It’s hard to admit, but I was a polydimethylsiloxane, gum arabic, alcohols, hydrocarbons, and gum tragacanth user. Scented. And aerosol. My 80s drug of choice: Aqua Net.
No blame assigned, but this might explain: When I was a child, my mother set my hair every night in those pink plastic spikey rollers that had to be held on with Bobby pins under a shower cap-like bonnet. That wasn’t so bad – you could arrange your head to find a pillow comfort spot. But it was the gateway drug to the hardcore stuff: Dippity Do. That sweet-smelling, cutely packaged, widely marketed goo was as benign as your Grandmother’s “cold cream”, you were told. Brush your hair and it’ll bounce back like a Slinky, hold its curl for days, and glisten with a healthy shine until your next weekly wash! You’ll look just like those glowing girls exercising and eating apples in the “How to Tell Your Daughter” pamphlets from days of yore, when only girls could menstruate.
The insidious dependency on “product” bored its way into my innocent life, and, before I knew it, I was hopelessly addicted to Firm Hold. It was inevitable that, without intervention, Extra, Maximum, and (shudder) “Glue” or “Freeze” followed, with tragic results: Helmet Head.
I still spray (man), but the stuff is softer, more natural, less gonzo. And I only use once, maybe twice a week. I’m older now, a bit more mellow. And that restraint leaves me with so much more money for booze and coke!
*Just kidding. Take a joke.