Epic Fails- Part 5 The Shaggy Perm

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Beauty, funny, Hair, midlife, Personal, women

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours had been in the charts for over a year and every teenage girl wanted the look. Stevie Nicks was the coolest. She had the original grungy hippy vibe, in her floaty black garb and her shaggy perm, she was every teenage boys dream. Therefore every teenage girl wanted the shaggy perm. Including me.

Well, as a penniless teenager, how could I possibly afford the shaggy perm. My mother’s purse strings didn’t stretch to a hair cut never mind an eye watering 30 pounds for a perm in one of the salons on Grafton Street. There was of course an alternative, actually my only option. “Eileen’s Hair Creations”. Eileen was a local woman who passed herself off as a hairdresser, and operated out of a salon above the local butchers. I use the word ‘salon’ loosely, as it was a room with a sink, two chairs and a bench. As you rose the stairs to her door, the smell of the butchers gave way to the overpowering stench of Elnett hair spray. In a previous life Eileen worked in the fish factory gutting fish so it’s a mystery how she reinvented herself as a hairdresser. Although about twenty years out of date, Eileen wore her hair in a tall beehive. Allegedly, she was an expert at doing perms, very popular with her octogenarian customers who were offered free a blue rinse alongside the perm. Eileen had never seen the cover of Rumours and in her mind this Stevie Nicks person must have been a man.

 

 

Nevertheless, I had to have a perm and the only way I was getting it was to succumb to Eileen’s perming skills. I suppose with hindsight the beehive should have been a giveaway, an inkling as to the standard of style Eileen aspired to.

 

I didn’t exactly look like Stevie Nicks when she was finished with me. I think the problem was that Eileen only had one roller size. The ‘little old lady perm’ size. I emerged with little tiny frizzy curls radiating from my head. I suppose it could have been worse, the free blue rinse wasn’t included.

 

 

I pulled my hood up, went home and hibernated for three months.

 

This isn’t me but bears an uncanny resemblance

 

My Epic Fails -Part 4 (hair ironing)

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Beauty, funny, Hair, midlife, women

A young girl called Imogen posted a picture on Facebook last week, of her epic fake tan fail. The unfortunate girl used a paint roller to apply it with disastrous results. It’s debatable whether she deserves our pity as she was stupid enough to share this idiocy with 40,000 Facebook users. However she is young and it got me thinking about my own foolish efforts in the name of vanity. The path to perfection hasn’t always been easy. Domestic Godliness cannot be achieved without a few mishaps along the way.

My best friend for the past number of years has been my beloved GHD. In the pre-GHD days of yore, I was extremely vain about my hair. Being a natural frizz ball, I resorted to every trick in the book to banish the tangles. My older sisters would iron each other’s hair. This involved an ironing board upon which a section of hair would be combed, covering it with brown paper, ironing said hair and hey presto, beautiful sleek straight tresses, fabulous. All done surrepticiously, without my mother’s knowledge. If caught, no doubt she’d have murdered us.

When it came to my teenage years, my older siblings had moved on and the one sister left, would refuse to iron my hair unless a bribe was offered. Going out in a state of frizz wasn’t an option so I would plead, beg, loan her my newest jeans, offer to do her bidding, anything. The power went to her head and I came to realise this pleading situation couldn’t go on. In desperation one day after she turned a deaf ear to my pleas, I took matters in hand and decided I would iron my own hair. Kneeling down, combing the hair and with brown paper in place I ironed my hair. It worked, I was in heaven. No longer enslaved to the whimsical nature of my siblings moods, I became a dab hand with the brown paper and flaunted my dexterity with the iron.

I suppose it was inevitable that it would end in disaster…

One day the brown paper slipped. I smelled the singeing tresses before I realised that the paper was gone. I lifted the iron and looked in horror at the clump of hair stuck to it. I resembled something akin to a cartoon electrocuted cat…Inconsolable, bereft, I couldn’t even go crying to my mother for solace as I knew she would just say ‘I told you so’ .

I emerged the following day from the hairdressers sporting a new shorter layered cut. It wasn’t bad actually, and I was no longer the slave to the ironing board. Straight hair was going out anyway as the shaggy perm had arrived (don’t miss – coming soon, my epic fails part 5 – the perm)

So my fellow Goddess’s be grateful for small mercies, that we live in the GHD age.

 

 

Wanted: Skinny Mirror

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Beauty, funny, midlife, women, work

I need a new mirror, one that lies.

Getting into the lift this morning, I looked particularly bedraggled as I viewed my reflection in the full length mirror facing me. This mirror is my nemesis. Enter this lift at your peril. No matter what efforts I make to look half decent, the mirror tells the same story.

Not just me, every woman in the office hates it. The lighting gives a strange liverish pallor to all and sundry. Too much reality first thing in the morning.

My grooming routine consists of a slap-on of foundation and a dab of lippy. In my dimly lit hall mirror I look reasonably acceptable, blissfully unaware of reality. But enter the lift, and all illusion of vanity is removed. This mirror is a crime against humanity. It shows every little line and blemish and manages to give a cadaver like appearance.

Recently the boss asked us for suggestions to make our work place better, a think tank of sorts. Ideas to generate additional revenue or save on expenditure. We were all expected to come up with at least one suggestion. I gave it my full consideration and came up with this. I suggested replacing the mirror in the lift. Replace it with one like the ones in clothes boutiques that make you look both skinny and tanned at the same time. Every woman knows about them. How many times have I bought a dress or a pair of jeans that looked fabulous in the shop, only to get home to find that my lumpy arse still looks feckin lumpy.

My thinking was that all the women in the office would start the day feeling confident and happier in the knowledge that they look fabulous, resulting in greater productivity, a more resourceful fruitful workforce…. Clients visiting the office would feel welcomed and assured when greeted by a better more comely reflection of themselves. A happy client is our main goal, right?

I was outraged to learn that not only did my suggestion not receive the full consideration it deserved that it was in fact was met with derision.

Reasons to love a mirror that lies.

• Makes you feel fabulous, resulting in a more cheerful disposition.
• Makes you feel skinny, resulting in a more cheerful disposition.
• Makes you feel sexy , resulting in a more cheerful disposition.
• Makes you look tanned, resulting in a more cheerful disposition.

What’s not to love?

Should Women of a Certain Age Cave in and Go Grey??

Tags

funny, Hair, menopause, midlife, women

I struggle with this very question about every three weeks, when my roots start reappearing. The inconvenience of spending hours in the hairdressers with chemical weapons on my head is something I anticipate with dread each time it comes around. My hair seems to grow at a phenomenal pace, and no sooner is it done when I seem to need to get the roots touched up again. That’s before I get my head around at what it costs. BTW, salon price lists are a closely guarded secret as Himself would throw a wobbler if he knew the half of it. I could go on a world cruise for the amount I spend just disguising grey hair every year. 

What prompts me to write this is that recently my hairdresser suggested it. I was quite taken aback. ‘You should try the pastel grey. Very on-trend at the moment”. Should I be insulted ?. I still wasn’t a granny the last time I checked.. I’ve been dying my hair since I was sixteen and frankly don’t even remember my own colour any more. But grey, that’s about 50 shades too far. In fact, I always said to Himself and to the kids, if I’m ever in a serious accident, for any reason I’m ever in a coma for more than 2 weeks, have a hairdresser come to my sick bed and do my roots. ‘On pain of death, you must promise you’ll never leave me with badger roots’. After all, they’re the reason I have it.

 

I decided to make a list of the pros and cons to getting my hair done professionally.

Pros to banishing the grey:

• Will look half presentable, in keeping with domestic goddess status
• No grey hair or badger roots
• Look my age (as opposed to looking like old hag)
• Catch up on local gossip at the salon
• Chance to read, file nails, check emails, Twitter

Cons to Going Grey:

• Will add 15 years.
• Will look like a displaced person with a head like an auld fella’s arm pits.
• possibly nicknamed ‘old badger roots’ or ‘grecian 2000 head’
• Will miss out on salon gossip, like who Sharon Byrne is philandering with, or who is botoxed up.
• Will forget how to tweet and will neglect nails
• Can go on cruise with money I save ( I list this as a con as I’d have to stay in cabin for the entire duration due to looking like old hag).

 

Feck it!! Think I’ll put off embracing my inner granny for a few more years and remain in denial of the slide into decrepitude.