Bad Hair Of Youth

I grew up in the 70s and 80s when huge, bad hair was the norm. When I say bad, I don't mean Michael Jackson “Bad”. I mean really, really dreadful.

It all started with Farrah Fawcett's trend setting “feathered” hairstyle. It looked great. On her. You see, Farrah's hair wasn't stiff and weirdly shaped. Somehow when this style translated to the rest of us, it morphed into solid tubes of hair. Here's my depiction of that glorious 'do:

Here in Northeast Pennsylvania, we took this to another level:

1.) Begin by getting a curly perm, then blow it out with a round brush to get a whoosh of feathers.

2.) Spray with Aquanet.

3.) Set curling iron on High. Proceed to curl the feathers into giant rolls. Repeat until you get the perfect roll, or your hair begins smoking.

4.) Spray with Aquanet.

5.) Slowly brush hair from the back end of the curl tube, moving horizontally, pulling the tube of curls to the back of your head.

6.) Spray with Aquanet.

Usually we concentrated so much on perfecting the sides, that we neglected the back. Sometimes it left a big, flat spot back there - which made the sides even more wing-like. Or the side curls circumnavigated the entire head, leaving the back looking like a cross between Darth Vader's helmet and a duck's bottom.

So in an attempt to make my hair do the impossible, I had split ends, bad perms and crunchy hair. I also drove my parents insane with the amount time it took to perfect this look each morning. Thankfully, I learned my lesson about 20 years ago.

What goes around comes around.

Now I know how my parents felt, and how ridiculous the entire styling process was. I get to see it every morning when my own daughter gets ready for school.

She just loves that flat iron.