Hair today…….

I just wanted to share a few thoughts on hair.

My hair has always been poker straight and from about the age of 7 or 8 (except for a brief spell when I was 18) I’ve always worn it short.  Often very short – in fact when my eldest daughter was born 13 years ago I’d had it shaved, not completely off but a number 3 all over.

This is about average length when it was short.

Then a couple of years ago when I was planning to start 20th Century Cloth I thought it would be a cool idea to grow it.

I thought I would be able to set it in pincurls or rollers and have lovely vintage looking curls and waves. The growing out was the worst but I managed to get it to a bob length with a blunt fringe without too much pain.

Then I decided to grow the fringe out too. It got difficult to find things to do with it while the fringe was getting long enough to style in any particular way. Eventually I managed to get it into a small front roll.

(Excuse the terrible roots!)

If I didn’t roll the fringe there wasn’t much I could do with it if I hadn’t set it. I don’t even remember doing this but there is photographic evidence to show I gelled it back too.

When it was set I loved it, but I’m really too lazy and too busy with running my business and looking after my family to find the time to do it. At least it looked nice when I got around to photographing the garments I’d made with my fabric!

This is one of my favourites.

It then got to the stage where I wasn’t setting it often and started wondering what the point of keeping it long was if I wasn’t going to do anything with it. So after much deliberation I decided to get it chopped – not completely to begin with, I kept some length at the front but the back was chopped completely.  I could still set it but it was much quicker and easier because I only had to do the top and sides, and not much at the back.

Then about 2 months ago I had it completely chopped – I still have some length on top but it’s almost back to where I started about 3 years ago so I’ve come full circle but feel much more liberated. As an added bonus I can now wear my cycle helmet without ruining my ‘do’, so I’ve started cycling too! I can just about get some small rollers in the top so I can still play around with it when the mood takes me but equally I can wash it and leave it and I think it still looks fine.

By complete coincidence at about the time I had my hair chopped Rochelle of the Lucky Lucille blog wrote a great post about short vintage hair. You can read it here. I think I’m going to let it grow just a bit more than this but I’ve picked up plenty of inspiration from Rochelles post and am going to be trying some new styles.