Long Hair Dreams...

It occurred to me the other day that I have NEVER in my entire life had long hair. I mean past the shoulders, flicky long hair like this...

The reason for the lack of long locks, are vast and plenty.

Let us start with my childhood... a time in my life where most things were dictated to by efficient time management. My mum was a working mum, and was still under the delusion that you could "have it all", just so long as you could time manage. Sadly a child screaming about tatty hair and how much it hurt to be brushed, whilst simultaneously demanding some kind of fancy plait had no place in the timetable... Of course there were also the inevitable epidemics of "little visitors" (ie nits) at school, which my poor harassed mother had little time for... 

I wish to make it clear at this point, that I don't actually blame my mother for her decision to keep my hair at a "manageable length" (ie a bob) for much of my childhood... This was after all the early 80's. A time when "having it all", actually meant "doing it all", ie working a full time highly pressured job, as well as doing the household side of things... Women may have been enlightened, but men, as usual took a while to catch up with the idea that if women worked then they might need to, ya know, get their arses off the couch and do some washing up or something... My dad did catch on sometime after the birth of my younger sister, however sadly, this coincided with what is now referred to as "The Great Hair Disaster of 1985".

"The Great Hair Disaster of 1985" was basically a trip that me and my mum took to the local "salon". My mum was due a cut and I accompanied her... so far so normal. The horror came when, after having her own "short and time-efficient" hairstyle cut, she plonked me in the chair and casually said "Just do hers the same" to the butcher hairstylist. For reference, the kinda style I'm taking about was something like this (this is not my Mum by the way).

I was completely and utterly horrified and disturbed by this turn of events. However at the age of five, I was rendered mute and obedient by a combination of shock and shyness. I walked out of the salon and covered my head with my hands. After much confusion on my mothers part, about why I was doing this, I think she kinda felt guilty about how upset I was by my new "do" and the fact that I was never even asked in passing if I wanted to be made to look like a boy. Suffice to say, the same thing never happened again, but my hair was always kept in a "neat" bob until I was a bit older...

Then came the dreaded "teenage years". I think the less said about this time in my life the better. Lets just say I had a lot of 90's style bobs which looked like wigs, and leave it there shall we? All I can say in my defence is that I thought it looked good at the time... I had a style crush going on for the 1920's look for most of the time too because of a TV show called "The House of Elliot" (anyone else remember that?)

 My 20's were the time where I went a bit wild in the hair stakes - I had my hair cropped a la Posh, and believe me, I am not putting this photo on here to symbolise any form of admiration for this woman, I just had a hair style very similar to this...

Of course, I was also a lot slimmer in my twenties, and so this looked really elfin and cute back then. Being the fickle creature I am, I also got bored very quickly with my hair in my twenties (shame the same couldn't be said about my taste in men - my God I wasted my twenties on some L.O.S.E.R.S. but thats a whole 'nother story), so I grew it down to my shoulders then chopped it off again about three times during this particular era. This was also the decade where I started to get into the old home dye kits...

Then came my 30's, when the remnants of my 20's grown out shoulder length hair looked a little sad and drab. If I were to sum up the 30's so far for my hair, I'd have to give you one word - DYED. My hair has been various shades of red, brown and all in between. I recently dyed it "Cool Scarlet". NEVER believe the pictures on the hair dye boxes by the way people - this particular box had a lovely bright scarlet colour on it... however when applied and left for the required time, it turned out VERY dark red. Which I'm getting used to now as it happens...


The "problem" is, I have never known thus far what it feels like to feel my hair on my back, or anywhere past my shoulders (yes, I put the word problem in "" signs because I am very aware that this is actually not a real problem, like third world hunger or the economy or anything). If I don't do it soon, then I'm in danger of treading into the territory of the likes of Susan Kennedy from Neighbours who had long hair for far too long if you know what I mean... 

Now, I'm definitely NOT saying that women can only wear long hair up until a certain age, but Susan here, definitely looked better after she had a restyle... Her hair just looked a little dated really. Maybe even if she'd kept it long but got some other kind of restyle done, she'd have continued to wear long hair well. Long hair can look great on older women - Jerry Hall and Jane seymour are both examples of women who have passed that "long hair past the age of 40" taboo". The problem is, I don't know if I'll be able to pull that off - so why not give it a whirl now?


Yup, this post was basically my very long winded way of saying, I'm not going to get that Lily Allen cut (did I mention that I'm fickle?). Instead I'm commencing on a bid for long hair - a "project" Long Hair if you will (well everyone else is on some kind of project around here... project ten pan, project no lipstick or whatever, so I might as well get in on the act...). 

The old noggin started to tick away on this idea with the arrival of the Three More Inches haircare. Then I started to look into co-washing (its basically washing your hair with conditioner only... the lack of sulfates in conditioner is meant to help with giving you hair that is soft and strong and very long... like toilet roll. Anyway, if you want to find out more just search you tube or google!), and decided to give that a whirl, in combination with the "Three More Inches" stuff. I'm also starting to make healthy changes to my diet which I think will help, and I have a few boxes of multivitamins for hair and nail growth lying about the place which I'm going to finally use...  Oh, and I'm going to cut down the amount of heat I use on my hair too, by allowing it to air dry etc. 


So, now I need your help! Any tips and tricks you have used to encourage healthy hair growth? Any similar hair disasters you want to share?