Hair (and a rant ensues)...

Can I just talk about hair?! As in hairstyles? I am obsessed! So the story of my hair goes like this: throughout my teens and early twenties I tried everything. Perms (I had many; a disaster), swinging between redhead and blonde, fringe/no fringe. I changed and sadly damaged my hair so much that it did once start to break off at the root after too many chemicals and I had to treat it with hot oil every time I washed it, just to get it to lie flat. Naturally, it's brunette, generally normal, fine hair, it used to be stick straight but after children now has a slight curl. So as a result of the abuse I put it through I became rather conservative and had - are you ready for this - the same hairdresser for fifteen years! Whaaa? I know - I am beyond loyal. I loved my hairdresser, she was/is a good friend, but eventually she decided to follow another calling and is retraining to become a midwife! So I am now out on my own after a decade and a half of hairstyling trust.

Olivia P...is she fretting because she misses her long hair?!

You know that feeling when you get a fabulous new haircut and it looks fresh and new and when you run your hands through it, it's healthy and blunt cut and just feels amazing? Happy-making? I want that. I want a restyle. I have had the same hair for so long or variations of a very limited theme.

But here is the issue - in Pinterest pictures of hair styles I covet; the beautiful hair sits atop the face of a model. YES! This is why their hair looks so stunning. I fall over myself pining pictures of 'choppy' bobs and 'mid-length' wonders; I am seduced by the faces, the whole package, not just the hair. It strikes me this is a wider issue to do with how we are in normal life (let's put everyone in the 'normal' bracket; as far as I know I don't have a celebrity/off-duty model readership). I walk around noting that most women's hair looks...dare I say...pretty average. Very few (lucky) women have naturally 'good' hair which is thick (but not too thick), luxuriant (not frizzy), healthy (no split ends), richly hued (not grey or with roots). It's the modern elixir of life - along of course with a positive body image, but don't get me started on that!

I noticed as I sat in the hair salon recently, with sweaty palms, getting my first new cut and colour, there were a lot of women around me gesticulating about wanting this or that - showing pictures from their phones. Using a language not applied anywhere else in life, about hair. 'It's too heavy'; 'Let's take the weight out' when referring to the scourge of the layer. What is it with layers?! I am so cross as I now have more layers in my hair than I wanted and the result: limp, thin hair. Hairdressers - why the layers?! What is it with this mystical 'weight' in hair that needs removing, like some sort of affliction?! Drives me nuts. The number of times I have grown out over-zealous layers in my life...

Then there is the colour. Now I am going grey - it pains me to write that - I have many contemporaries who are not and I wonder at the injustice of getting my first grey hair at 30. I have been dying my hair for a decade and for the record: there is no way I am going to go properly grey. My Danish Grandmother was in her nineties and still had brunette hair. This is my role model. So there you are - I will be locked into the hair dying extravaganza forever. I may as well take out a second mortgage! And here is my theory on colouring: only one in five colouring appointments turn out right. Some too dark, some too light, some went to far, some not far enough. This is an enigma to me. Why the variation?

So - I am frustrated. I now have mid length hair - it is completely 'meh'. I see these short funky bob cuts. I want that. I want cool, easy hair. I get up at 6.30am every morning; I don't have time for styling. But I also absolutely lust for lovely, long hair. Like Olivia P. Arrgghh and then I go back to my original point, which is: Olivia could shave her head and still look amazing. It's because she is model beautiful.

I live in fear of 'housewife' hair - that is hair which just hangs. Un-styled. Un-stylish. It's a minefield ;-)

So please - what to do? What is recommended for mere mortals? I need a hairstyle that works, and that I love and that I don't look in the mirror and immediately want to pull it into a pony tail. Cut or grow??

...it's OK; it grows back...