Like Samson, Hillary Clinton admits the source of her political power lies in her hair. “If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle.”
What is it with women and hair? In the Middle East, they keep it under wraps. In art, we see it entwined around a woman’s body like Botticelli’s Venus Emerging from the Waves. Women may experiment with pixie cuts and cap cuts and curly ragamuffin cuts but what we all crave is a big, bountiful mane. What’s more we’ll to endure any amount of torture and expense to get it. We make the sacrifice because, according to writer, Gully Wells, we see abundant locks as a form of liberation. (“Make it Big,” Town&Country, March 2014 pg. 161.)
Regrettably, I couldn’t agree with Gully Wells less. If we are honest, big hair means anything but freedom. To maintain it requires frequent trips to the beauty parlor where we sweat under a dryer then allow our hair to be pulled, twisted and backcombed until we look less coiffed and more as if we’ve crawled out of bed. The style may be sexy but it’s far from liberating.
Big hair means being a slave to hair products, a colorist and a stylist. Worse, the regimen is not only expensive but addictive. As one women remarked is Well’s article, “I decided years ago that I would have my hair done every single morning. And when I travel I have a long list of hair dressers in every city around the world.” (Ibid, pg. 161.)
Magicians go to enormous lengths to create illusions but as I’ve suggested, their efforts pale compared to what a woman will do to indulge her fantasy that her wispy locks can be made to look abundant. She will defy genetic coding, tape hair extensions to her scalp, pay any price for mousse because she knows if she can’t control her hair, she has no control over her life. Nations may find security in their nuclear weapons. Women find it in hair spray.
Though little noted by historians women, unlike men, have shared a common quest throughout the ages . From cradle to grave, we search for the perfect hairstylist.
(Courtesy of shorthairstyleslong.blogspot.com)
