A Hair Story

So this is a rather self indulgent post about my hair, and the drama, of what on earth to do with it?

Also included at the end is a review of a couple of items I recently ordered from Topshop.

This quote recently appeared on my Instagram feed:

And it spoke V.O.L.U.M.E.S. to me.

You see, I’m one of those people who naturally has what you could call ‘bad hair’… and I’m not referring to how I wear it.  Scraping it back is more of a necessity than by choice.

No, my actual hair is a pain the backside.

So, if I take the time to dry it… which would take a LONG time, given I have rather A LOT of hair, and then spend further time straightening it, then of course it looks ok… you wouldn’t give me  a second glance for having ‘bad hair’.

But here’s the thing: I am bone idle, proper lazy when it comes to my hair/skin/make-up etc.

Plus, I find that if I use any product in my hair I need to wash it more than my preferred twice a week which is an arduous enough task as it is, and again, I don’t want to add to my washing, do I?!

If I were to section my hair off and grab most of it, leaving the layer by my neck – that’s the properly curly layer;  then, the next layer over that is wavy, next one is pretty straight… but the outer most layer – the one you can see is the kinky-frizzy layer.

And if I were to walk down the street with my giant, air dried hair in all its buzzy glory… it would be the sort of hair that would cause you to give it a second glance, and perhaps a pitiful thought of “poor cow!”

Since moving out of London, to a small town in the Shires, I haven’t found a single hairdresser that I’m happy with.

Yup – not a single one in the 6 years and 8 months in which I’ve lived here.

Don’t get me wrong… I haven’t had any terrible haircuts or anything… rather, I never quite get a ‘hairstyle’.

Instead one of two things happens: either a trim of 0.5cms which is barely noticeable or, I wind up with a long ‘mum’ bob (i’ll stick to calling it a Lob).

And again, I’d say there’s nothing wrong with a Lob per se… if you’ve asked for one, but I can guarantee you that I’ve never asked for a Lob in the past (almost) 7 years.  In fact, far from it, I have actually stated from the off that I categorically DO. NOT. WANT. a LONG. BOB.

And yet, 3 times in the past few years, that is precisely that I have left the salon with, most recently in October:

And so, finally, an opportunity has arisen for me to get my haircut in London where I’m not travelling up especially for just a haircut as I will be in town for an entire kid-free weekend (more on that later…)

I’m not going to bore you with every single hairstyle I’ve had over the years… but I’ve dug out some old pics to share with you which has been pretty tricky task: I braved the spider infested loft trying to find boxes which may contain old photo’s as well as enlisting Mr T, kicking and swearing about having to pull the old iMac out of the loft where he bashed his shoulder on a rafter and all to no avail as we can’t find all the connector for the mac etc etc.

(Though we do need to pull our old photo’s off of this old mac – a job which should have been done 5 years ago! #justsaying!)

I don’t really have many of my childhood pics but I managed to find a few –  and you’ll have to excuse the poor quality as these are scanned images:

Here I am in 1973/74… I chose this picture for two reasons: it’s a rare photo of me with just my parents… they had 4 kids, so more often than not there were at least 2 kids in the photo; but the main reason is that it shows my mum’s curly locks as well as my curly mane.

Through out my childhood, I had long waist length hair, usually worn in two plaits, but here’s a rare pic of me wearing it down.  But then, I reached an age of defiance…

I had always desperately wanted a thick, paintbrush fringe, like all my friends.  My mum always told me that a fringe wouldn’t suit my small, round face.

She was right.

I hated this fringe which I had cut at 15- it looked awful worn down like a paintbrush and so I had to part it, making it look like a huge mustachio on my forehead.

By 17, the fringe had reached my shoulders, and so I had that long waist length hair cut to my shoulders.

Once at Uni… the ‘bob’ years started:

I had very short graduated bobs which needed re-doing every 6 weeks, so my mid-20s, I finally grew the bob out.

When I was 28, I did something drastic, something that I had wanted to do ‘just one time’ in my life.

I shaved all my hair off.

Now trust me when I tell you I searched high and low for a photo of it but I’m afraid I didn’t find a single one.

The shaved hair was during the tail end of my 18 months in SE Asia… I should think plenty of my travel buddies have photos of it… just not me.

Instead, here I am with a crop, growing the shaved hair out:

And then of course, I had a few years of short hair…

Eventually I grew it longer again, enduring a painful year or two of a bob again in the middle… although between 2001 – 2010 I had the Yuko hair straightening on my hair which I LOVED:

Having my hair permanently straightened was the most amazing thing: I could wash it, and just leave it and it looked good.

Plus, the heavy layering and structure given to my hair by my London based hairdresser meant there was a ‘style’ to it… never boring.

So, its with much excitement that I’ll be heading to Daniel Galvin, first thing on Saturday morning… what ever I go for, trust me when I tell you it won’t be a bob!

Before I go, I’ll leave you with a quick update on the two items I ordered from my Sunday 7:

I ordered these wide leg crops and this tied-neck blouse, both from Topshop:

Now I wouldn’t normally wear a tie-neck blouse with tie-waist trousers together, but it was just to show you them… so am I keeping either?

It’s a beautiful blouse from Topshop Boutique, I’ll give it that.  Oh, as well as the print and that its 100% silk, so for £60 its pretty good value.

However, the two buttons at the neck opening as well as threading the tie through the loop are slightly too fussy for me.

And the pink?  A little too saccharine sweet for my taste.

I would wear it, but not often enough to warrant keeping it.

I would size down or stick to your size as its a loose-cut… I’m wearing a size 4 here for reference.

And the Awkward length crops?

These are again a size 4, where normally I would take a 6.

They fit a little too snugly and I’d worry that being made from poplin – basically a cotton, that they would shrink that fraction in the wash as most cotton’s do on a first wash which would give me no room to breathe.

Also, they are meant to be a good 2 inches shorter, which I would be happy enough to take up myself, but it turns out they are navy blue not black and ultimately far too similar to my Warehouse culottes…. so again, I have to send them back which I’m gutted about!  I mean, look at the tie on the front:

So, the TS Boutique Blouse is going back as it’s not quite what I wanted… and the Awkward length crops are going back as they are a fraction too small (*sob*).

It’s a good job I ordered the Iris & Ink Pussy Bow Blouse in blush pink as a back-up then, isn’t it?  Will report back on that one soon.

As always, thanks for reading… and would love to hear your thoughts about what I should get done to my hair?  9am on Saturday morning!!

Leave a comment – I’ll get back to you.

Bx