Tuesday, December 01, 2009

With a fringe on the top

My hair has always been more or less the same. I was born with full head of dark brown hair, and then any photographs of me, it is long, straight and brown. I must have had short hair at some point to go from the baby fluff to the long hair, but there is no documented evidence of this. For 30-odd years, I have had more or less the same hair style. The only major variation has been the issue of the fringe.

From the age of 3 to 16, I had a fringe. From ages 3 to 9 it was invariably a badly cut, wonky fringe, courtesy of my mother. Around the age of 10, hairdressers were obviously invented, and the fringe became straight. At 15, I wanted rid of the fringe. It seemed to take years to get rid of it properly and I spent much of the ages 16 to 18 hiding behind the awkward growing out stage.

I lived happily without fringe for probably over a decade, when somehow a hairdresser persuaded me to let it back into my life. The last few years have seen me swing from fringe to not fringe. and most recently being in the no man's land of the "sweeping side fringe". When I'm without a fringe, I admire the sharp, 60s style fringes of others, and imagine a fringe for myself like this:


With this thought in mind, I allowed the return of the fringe on Saturday. The elfin hairdresser seemed to greet the idea of the fringe with enthusiasm - I think she was more bored with the sweeping side fringe than I was. When it was cut, she proudly announced "It's back!". I was less keen. Now I am with fringe again, I'm looking enviously at those with cascading fringe-less hair and when I think of fringes and look in the mirror, this image comes to mind.




2 comments:

cogidubnus said...

Don't talk to me about hair! I've just had my annual trim (I get it done once a year whether I need it or not) and everyone at work accuses me of having a comb-over - it's ruddy well not! I part my hair in exactly the same place as I did forty years ago...not my fault the parting got a bit wider!

Anonymous said...

I share your pain...

After being fringeless or wearing my hair with a side sweeped effort just a bit too long to be called a fringe for many years, about 18 months ago had one cut in.

I too initially suffered the institution fringe reminiscent of my mother's efforts circa 1977 and cried most of the way home everytime i caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window.

Over the last 18 months, I have established that to have a fringe, you have to choose the lesser of the following 2 evils:

- go with a too short fringe initially and wait a couple of weeks for it to bed in and grow a bit aka the 'you are only ever 2 weeks away from a bad haircut' approach, or

- initially have the fringe cut long and then resign yourself to the fact it'll be too long within a couple of weeks and you'll be poking it out of your eyes and having the damn thing trimmed about 4 times in advance of your next full hair cut

I can't seem to find a middle way...