Soft Silky Scraggly And Split Ended

My first memory of beautiful hair was from a Barbie coloring book. I especially liked the close-ups. Barbie. Tight shot. Gorgeous, flowing hair. I would fill in the lines with varying shades of mahogany, burnt sienna and blondie blond. Okay I just made that last color up. It was so much fun giving Barbie highlights and lowlights. My older sister liked the close-ups too. Her thing was putting make-up on Barbie's face.



It was also around this time when my very first hair nightmare happened. My older sister had some bright idea to cut me some bangs! Let me set it up for you. I was four. She was eight. One day while the parents were away, she comes up to me with a sly look in her face. In her hand was a pair of pink plastic scissors. These were classroom scissors, you know, the kind that can barely cut paper. So she pulls me into the bathroom, locks the door and she snips away. Snip snip snip. Giggle giggle. Yeah, it was fun. FOR HER.

Bangs are meant to kind of kiss your eyebrows, right? Not the bangs I had just acquired. Nooo. More like kiss my SCALP!!! Seems like my sister had an avant garde streak. That, or a bad case of the shakes rarely seen in children. To my regret, it happened around Christmas and many a photograph has captured that bad hair episode.

I used to try to tame my hair into obedience. Lots of blow drying and hot oils with the hope that it would be nice and straight. Didn't happen. Allow me to illustrate. If you would, close your eyes and imagine a human head. Then, picture its hair as you would a pyramid. A slight one but a pyramid nonetheless, a kind of triangular afro but with strands of hair that can't decide if it wants to be wavy or straight. Right.

I have since made peace with my hair. I have accepted that it really is some kind of wavy/ straight hybrid with a sprinkling of frizz. On a good day it's actually not bad.

Unless I decide to tie it into a high ponytail.

Take a look, I made it extra special, in silhouette.