Thursday, February 17, 2011

the things I did for 'beauty' ...

I have lots of thin strands of wavy, curly, frizzy hair.  Today it's called, 'textured'. When I was a teenager and how I looked mattered to the point of obsession I used to iron it. Yes. People actually did that. It worked surprisingly well, but ruined my hair. Plus it smelled really bad and needed two people for the job to be done properly. My mother refused to participate in my plans for total hair destruction- smart woman. And as I had only lots of brothers I had to outsource the job.

Labor of that sort was really hard to come by. As I've already said- it smells really bad. To a 12 and 13 year old girl in 1962 a bad smell can be a deal breaker. Once in a while I had to take on the job myself. On these difficult occasions, not only did I get an excellent upper arm work-out, but I also learned just how far a shoulder can rotate and an arm stretch.

Despite my best efforts my hair usually had an even bump all the way around from where I could get no closer to my scalp to the where the hair entered my scalp. And that bump area looked very different from the rest of my hair.

And then there were the iron burns...little angry red arrow tips on my hands and lower arms. It wasn't great, but it was the best I could do with my limited skills and resources. and it was quite a workout and fraught with danger!

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