Hair

How do you wear your hair? Have you always worn your hair in a similar style, or do you see your hair as more of a changeable accessory?

Personally the most I’ve experimented has been with a few perms and with the length. I used to think my hair was awful and wouldn’t do anything, so I’d get a perm in hopes that would help. But my hair is very resistant to perms, and the curl would never take at the nape of my neck, the crown of my head and my bangs. Weird, huh? So that was a partial solution at best, and really mostly awful because it was so hard on my hair and always stripped it of color.

Active duty

And I’ve gone from super short hair, to just below shoulder length. When I was in the Army (active duty), I had long hair and wore it in a bun per regulations. I cut it the day I went into labor with my first child.

Then in college (and in the Army Reserves), I grew it long again and wore it French braided every day. Yes, I braided it every day. Then one day I realized that wearing my hair up like that was essentially like having short hair, so I cut it off again—quite short this time.

I’ve also colored it for years. I got my first silver hair when I was 21 or 22, and was just appalled. So I started coloring it. Then about seven years ago, I grew out the color so I could see what was under the hood. And while I like the color—it’s a lovely silver—it’s not evenly sprinkled throughout which would be really nice. No, it’s like God smooshed a bunch of silver sno-cones on my head. Very blotchy, and not particularly attractive at all. So I’m back to coloring—as an interesting aside, we lived in Boston when I had my stylist color it again. He’d never seen it colored and he matched the color to my non-silver hair. I was shocked at how dark it was but he assured me that was the color.

Not much change

Oddly enough, my hair style today is remarkably similar to how I wore it when I was a little girl. I like this length on me because it’s not so long as to look silly, but it’s long enough to put up in a ponytail or a french braid. And in a way, I keep it this length as a cost savings measure. My hair grows ridiculously fast and to keep a short cut looking good, I would (and have in the past) need to get a haircut every three weeks.

Hairstyle by Alison