How taste in beauty changes

Blue hair. That's what we called women over 65 when I was a kid. It was mean, but that's how kids are. And green hair was for a bad blonde rinse poorly applied. Now hair is lime green, purple, burgundy and polkadot, but on young women. What skin shade looks good with purple hair? And men wear orange running shoes with pink shoe laces and man buns. A nose ring used to be for bad tempered bulls, now they're for baristas serving $5 cups of latte. When I served coffee in the 1950s it was ten cents and if you smiled you could get a quarter tip. A nose ring would have gotten you fired. Tattoos used to be for tough guys, usually military, now they are walking art galleries with skin as the canvas stretched across big bellies and skinny calves and no one knows who the artist is.

Make-over, please

I may sound as catty and juvenile as our President back biting at the Texas Lt. Governor, but really, Debbie Wasserman Schultz desperately needs a make-over. It must be naturally curly hair, because no one could get a bad perm that consistently year after year.

 http://hotair.com/archives/2016/05/12/wasserman-schultz-running-scared-from-liberal-challenger/

 

Maybe a wig?

I saw a woman yesterday wearing this type of wig and I liked it.  It would certainly solve some sticky hot hair do days.  In the 70s I had several wigs—different colors and styles, and I liked it.  Many women wore wigs then.  Now you mainly see them on women who have had some sort of therapy that has caused hair loss.

Short hair styles for “older women”

One or two of my medications is causing a problem with my hair, so I’m going to have it cut short again so I don’t have to mess with it.  It always looks nice the day I shampoo and style, and then a limp  straggly mess for 2 days.  I’ve had all of these at different times, or something similar. I’m trending toward #3 and #6. Ignore the color—I’m not doing that.

1.

Not sure how she got classified as an older woman.

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7.

2002, class reunion, short and spiky

8.

2011, medium short

9.

2012, very short

Does she or doesn’t she?

                  

Do you remember the first time you colored your hair—not to experiment over the bathroom sink, but to have it done professionally?  From the 1950s to the 1970s, the number of American women coloring their hair rose from 7 percent to more than 40 percent, so when I was young hair coloring was just a bit edgy, or for the elderly.

I had my brown hair with a few strands of dull gray “high lighted” with blonde probably in the mid to late 80s, because I recall the children  were grown and gone.  I was being picked up in Rockford at the bus by my parents and I was sort of concerned about what my mother would say.  She said nothing.  So finally I asked her what she thought of my new hair color, and she took a closer look.  She said it looked just like my hair did when I was a child so she hadn’t noticed—that’s sort of the image she had of me.  Dad didn’t notice either.

So I continued.  Depending on whether I had a curly perm or straightened it, sometimes it looked blonde, sometimes highlighted. Then in the late 90s I switched to light brown, over all color, but occasionally had it high lighted, like this photo from 2002—which looks completely blonde but which was actually high lights a bit over done.  A few times I tried to do it myself to save some money, but the mess and the poor results were not worth the savings.  One time a professional got it way too dark and there was nothing I could do.  It was sort of a dark, reddish brown.  I just had to live with it.

                        

When I turned 71, I decided to let it grow out and see what it looked like.  My kids don’t like it at all—makes them feel older, and I noticed immediately that people treated me different, as though I were more frail and less intelligent.  Oh well.  It saves about $500 a year.  See the Easter post (Friday family photo) for the results.

Today is G-Day

The last of my hair color will be cut off this morning. It was a shock to me when my mother, aunt, sister, etc. went for the natural look. I felt like I'd aged. My husband and daughter both suggested I go blonde, which brown fades to anyway, but I never really cared for that look. Deborah says she loves saving the money. So, we'll see--if I don't like it I can always go back to color.

Brown, 2007

Blonde, 2003

Brown, 1981

Brown, 1971

Brown, 1964

Really bad frugal living tips

Driving home from the coffee shop this morning, I heard a review of a frugal tips book currently getting air play and pixels. The worst was "use a beauty school student instead of your regular hair dresser and pay only $20." Well, why not go really cheap and cut it yourself, or let your husband and/or girl friend do it? No thanks. I pay about $90 every 7 weeks, and I'm fine with that. I help the local economy and a small business woman. Melissa (Shear Impressions) owns her own business, attends the same church we do, graduated from Grandview H.S., is about my children's age, and I've known her since she finished her own schooling about 25 years ago and worked for David Keith. We can pick up the chat where we left off in December, she calls if I've forgotten, and I can buy the products I like at her shop. One time I had to have a work-in because I'd scheduled wrong, and was planning to leave town for a class reunion. There was another younger gal renting a chair from Melissa, so she took me. "Your reunion?" she cooed. "Oh, honey, let's jazz it up a bit." For six weeks, I was about as blonde as Marilyn Monroe, whose real name was Norma, remember.


I had my first professional hair cut for another class event--the eighth grade trip to Chicago. (I'm the one in the middle.) Before that, my mother chopped away at it with her sewing shears. I'm sure she read up on it, but. . . She also gave us home permanents. Whew! Did they smell.


Most women I know would give up their church before they'd give up their veterinarian or their hair dresser.

737 Bad hair day

I saw a woman at Meijer's today with my hair style--the one I had in 1966! I was so shocked, I braked the grocery cart and stared. It was one of those beehive thingies with the French twist in the back. I didn't know there were hair stylists alive who still knew how to do that. I rarely keep a hair style longer than a year. The one I have right now (different than the photo which was 2003) is about a year old, and I'm really bored with it.

When I was growing up, after I gave up French braids, my mother always cut my hair--she also permed it. Whew! Did those things smell. Then when I was in 8th grade we went to Rockford and I got a professional hairstyle, a snazzy two piece, lime-green and white, sleeveless dress with a straight skirt (my first), and white linen high heels, and poof, I had grown up overnight. In my memory, I was always letting my hair "grow out." However, I remember a haircut before the Christmas dance when I was a junior in high school, a hair set the morning of my wedding day, and a haircut and set to have my senior photo in college taken. I'm sure there were more trips to the "beauty parlor" than that, but it must have been "growing out" most of the time, because my old photos show a lot of pony tails and shoulder length hair.


8th grade Chicago trip

My husband had beautiful red curly hair when we met. However, very short hair was popular for men, so I had to take his word for it that he had curls. He said it was so wild and unruly when he was a child, he'd be sent out of class to comb his hair. Living through our children's teen years took care of most of his hair, and then about 10 years ago it lost most of its color.


On the beach

This painting of us on a beach of Lake Erie 30 years ago is by Ned Moore, one of the best watercolorists in Ohio. My husband still had his red hair, and my hair, as usual, was growing out, in braids almost to my waist. It is one of my favorites.