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Jacquie D’Allasandro tells me every time she sees me that I have heroine hair. This is a great compliment, but it’s time that the truth came out. I have naturally curly hair. Okay…I have mostly naturally curly hair, with some of it naturally, let’s say frizzy. That might be a bit of a stretch as well. Let’s try this. Some of my hair is naturally curly – I was actually born with curls – but some of it is wavy, some is frizzy and some just won’t cooperate at all.
So here’s my big confession. I get a perm once a year to even things out. There I’ve said it. I’ve come clean. I don’t really have heroine hair. It’s not pure and natural and glorious. It’s manufactured, assisted, and chemically enhanced. I have to use a $100 straightening iron to pull all these corkscrews out and then it lays there, flat, lifeless and boring. Which is why I continue to get those annual “treatments” because my hair just works better all wound up. And why I gave said flat iron to my sister earlier this year cause there’s just no point.
I’ve come to the conclusion that most women don’t love their hair. Right now my oldest daughter loves her super curly hair, but I know a day will come when she’ll loathe it and wish she had her little sister’s straight hair. Women just can’t make peace with their hair, though we strive to on a regular basis. Don’t we all obsess about it? The color, the texture, the cut, the everything. It’s enough to drive you nuts. This might explain why most romance heroines come with perfect hair. That as much as the hero is part of our fantasy. ☺
And you know for the most part all this fretting we do is for all the other women in the world because most men don’t even notice. The Professor has voiced that he prefers my hair curly to the ironed straight look, but says the straight is a nice change when I do it. Diplomatic, that man.
So how about you, do you have any hair secrets? Do you get yours colored or curled or chemically enchanted in any way? Come on, spill the beans and tell me your beauty secrets?
Filed in: Jaunty Post
Jan 27th
2012
8:43 am
Katherine Garbera Said:
Robyn–I think you still can claim heroine hair, its beautiful. I have naturally curly hair and aside from some frizz the curls are all mine. My issue is and I hate to admit this, I have a lot of gray. I have to dye my hair at least every six weeks or I start to resemble Cruella De Vil. Not pretty!
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Jan 27th
2012
8:47 am
Margo Maguire Said:
LOL, Robyn! Jacquie was right – you DO have heroine hair!
My hair went pretty much all white within a couple of years after my youngest child was born. So I’ve been coloring it ever since, because I didn’t want to look like my kids’ grandmother. The color is the same as what I grew up with, so it’s nothing dramatic. Just not white.
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Jan 27th
2012
8:50 am
RobynDeHart Said:
I would never have known that either of you color your hair. I’ve tried to color mine in the past and it won’t hold color. I’ve been told that it’s because my hair is so fine there isn’t enough of a “shaft” to hold the color. So if I get it colored it will rinse right out, even permanent color. With the exception of that one time I did the pink streaks underneath my hair, that time I couldn’t get it out. We literally just had to wait for my hair to grow and then we cut it out. It was crazy.
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Jan 27th
2012
9:10 am
Cynthia D'Alba Said:
You have beautiful hair. The kind heroes love to run their fingers through!
I have curly/frizzy hair. I cut it all off. Now it’s short and fairly straight.
BUT back in my growing up years, I would do everything I could think of to straighten my hair…hair straighteners, hot iron, rolling it on huge coffee cans, dipity do (is that still made?)…name it (from the 1970′s) and I probably tried it.
And color? Let’s not begin to talk about all the errors I made there!
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Jan 27th
2012
11:58 am
Tori Said:
I think your hair is gorgeous too! Curly hair runs in my family, but alas I wasn’t one of the blessed ones who inherited it. The girls in my family who were though have gorgeous curls and with a good cut, just add product to tame the frizz and they’re done with their hair for the rest of the day. I hate them!
As for my own hair, I love the color. It’s a very dark brown that some people mistake for black, except in the sun when the auburn highlights show up. Otherwise, it’s a hot mess. It’s thick but fine, wavy in some places, curly in others and just plain frizzy in the rest. My secret is hair cholesterol and my big fat curling iron that is BOTH ionic AND ceramic. That’s the magic combination for shiny manageable hair.
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Jan 27th
2012
12:49 pm
Terri Brisbin Said:
I am completely distraught after learning that your hair is TREATED!!! Shocking!
LOL!
My hair is very fine but thick and lots of it – but is as straight as teenage girls used to want theirs to be….board-straight…no body. So, my perms leave me as a complete mop-top….or nothing at all. Body perms do nothing. Sheesh!
I guess we always want what we don’t have….
Terri
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Jan 27th
2012
1:10 pm
RebeLovesBooks Said:
You do have heroine hair! I have a few friends with naturally curly hair, and they must spend a small fortune (and hours a week) wrestling with it, so I don’t envy them one bit. I actually like my hair, which I keep putting off coloring because once you start, you can’t stop, right? But the grey hairs, they are beginning to mate like rabbits, so eventually I will have to at least get highlights. Maybe I can read a few good books while I’m getting them done!
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Jan 27th
2012
4:58 pm
Shana Galen Said:
Spill my secrets? I don’t think so! I will say that when i show up at conference with straight hair, that is not my hair’s natural state. It costs money and lots of time!
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Jan 27th
2012
6:11 pm
Gayle Cochrane Said:
I have very thick mostly straight hair, and a cowlick. I tend to cut my own bangs with too much enthusiasm, and must later apologize to the hair dresser as she tries to fix it. The grey hairs that have started to appear I pretend are silver streaks. No helpful advice here.
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Jan 27th
2012
8:10 pm
Deb Said:
Hair products and a blow dryer and a curling iron. I used to get a perm every 4 to 6 months, but haven’t had one in almost 5 years. I have been going to a new hairdresser since October and she is amazing. I have always been blow dryer-challenged…really. But, she showed me how to blow dry my hair, put a tiny bit of mousse in it, curl it quickly, and put some goo stuff in my hair. I can now have my hair washed, dried, curled, and gooed in 20-25 minutes whereas before it took me 45. I also have my hair low-lighted. The older I get, the more I like that than the highlights.
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Jan 27th
2012
11:52 pm
Kathleen Said:
Oh how i wish I had thick hair… Don’t even care if it was long, just more body. I have naturally curly hair, but mine is very fine… I have to keep it short though to keep that natural curl and get some body. I have my hair highligted about every 6-8 weeks.. Thank god I have a terrific hairdresser.. She makes me look like a million bucks when she’s finished.. One thing God did not gift me with was good hairstyling….
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Jan 28th
2012
9:45 am
EmilyMcKay Said:
My hair is straight, but cowllicky. Which basically means it does whatever it wants to. I’ve long ago given up trying to get it to do what I want. Now, I’m just happy if it doesn’t look like ’80′s hair band hair.
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Jan 28th
2012
12:27 pm
mimi Said:
Heroine hair–that is awesome! It would have saved me so much grief when I was younger to think that about my naturally curly locks!
I spent most of my youth bemoaning my anti-Marcia Brady look and sported what was pretty much a helmet or mullet because I didn’t know how to deal with all that volume. Then I discovered Lorraine Massey’s CURLY GIRL. RUN to the bookstore and buy a copy. It changed my hair and my relationship with it completely. The short version: no shampoo (or very, very gentle no-sulfate shampoo rarely), plenty of conditioner, a great gel (with this much curl and Florida humidity, I’ve found a match in Kinky-Curly Curling Custard), and air drying. Now I sport mermaid curls all the time with hardly any frizz. Unless I’ve been driving with the top down, but that’s another discussion.
Not only do I have curls, but I have grey, and LOTS OF IT (thanks, Daddy). I finally decided to make peace with it. I no longer color, even though I’m still on this side of 50, because if I tried to get the white ones to match the dark ones, I’d end up looking like Elvira. VERY unflattering. I see so many women who are my age or older who have such harsh haircolor that they end up looking older than they actually are. My lovely husband prefers my real hair, bless him. It takes a pretty strong personality to embrace this much grey–we’re talking 50% or more–at this age, so maybe it’s best.
I have plenty of flaws to obsess over, but thankfully, hair is no longer one of them.
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Jan 31st
2012
12:58 pm
Nancy Robards Thompson Said:
Robyn, I am in exactly the same “hair boat” as you. I have naturally curly/wavy/frizzy hair. It never cooperates and never does the same thing twice – except for the obscene gestures it tends to make. I took the opposite route and invested in a keratin straightening treatment. Do you think I was satisfied? Not at first. In fact, my hair was so flat and stuck to my head, I regretted it. But after about a month my hair adjusted and some of the body came back. I can actually let it dry naturally without looking like I’m wearing a fright wig. I may get it done again… but, like you, I think I’ll limit it to once a year.
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