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 Although about twenty years out of date, Eileen wore her hair in a tall beehive.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
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
NiftyFiftyShades 