We humans spend a lot of time on our hair.
We as Southerners, in particular, spend even more time on our hair.
Why, the great Southern bouffant has been known to inspire everything from movies
(Steel Magnolias) to politicians (Ann Richards).
Southern women are serious about their hair.
When I was growing up, ladies had big hair. All the ladies in town had big hair. Flat hair was a sure sign of a non-lady.
Flat-haired women were either Yankees, communists, or Christian Scientists … in any event, they were a rare breed in the Alabama of my childhood.
But as I grew older, suddenly big hair was out. Flat hair became all the rage. Here in New York City, flat hair is definitely “in.”
In fact, the latest hairdo for women is the “pageboy.” They don’t even call it a “hairdo.” It’s simply a haircut. I’ve seen women with pageboy haircuts. They look like, well. pageboys. They certainly don’t look like ladies.
So yes, Andalusia, even though I’ve moved to the big city, I have developed a newfound appreciation for big hair.
It ain’t an easy road to achieving big hair. Gail Huitt, the hairdresser to the former Texas governor Ann Richards, goes to a lot of trouble to get Ann’s big hair into shape: “I rat the tar out of it, pray … it. I get it up there and defy gravity.”
In Alabama, I daresay the women make Gail look like an amateur.
In my family, big hair started with my grandmother. In photos of my great-grandmothers, their hair was in buns and such – buns do not qualify for big hair.
My grandmothers believe in the BEAUTY PARLOR. That is where they went to have their “bob fixed, the “fix” bobbed, the “doo” done, the “manc” manicured, the “shield” sheared, the “helmet” handled, and the “coif” coifed, as it were. I suspect that they went there for other things too, like bonding and chatting, but I’ll leave that speculation to the Hollywood screenwriters.
Men aren’t really allowed in beauty parlors, not that we want to go, anyway. It’s taboo. It’s where, ironically, women look their worst: all wet and soggy like a cat thrown into a dishwasher. And beauty parlors smell wretched. I think making beauty parlors smell like a Dow Chemicals plant is probably a clever ploy on the part of women to keep the men out.
Naturally, though, there have been times in my life with I’ve been taken to the beauty parlor. When I was 10, my grandmother Wiggins took me to her beauty parlor. As a 10-year-old, being taken to the beauty parlor is about as much fun as roller-skating down a gravel driveway.
Talk about humiliation.
But grandmama couldn’t miss her appointment. On Fridays she had her hair poofed — rain., hurricane, tornado, sleet, or shine (it’s never snowed on a Friday in Andalusia, and oddly. some of these natural disasters actually helped the shape of my grandmother’s bouffant).
On this particular Friday, I was taken along.
You can imagine my horror when I was greeted by seven wet old ladies who smelled of sulfur and were wearing hoses, tinfoil, sticks, and rollers in their hair. Scary stuff. When I was 10, I had blonde curly locks.
Let me tell ya’ll something — wet old ladies like young boys with curly hair. Let me tell you something else — young boys do not like wet old ladies. So please, if you’re in a beauty parlor with foreign objects sticking out of your head, don’t run up to visiting grandchildren and want to touch their hair.
Nonetheless, the atrocities were too much for my juvenile sensibilities, so grandmama sent me out to play with her hairdresser’s son in the neighboring junkyard. That was fun.
And for years, I managed to avoid beauty parlors altogether. But recently, I was lured back into the fray. A friend of mine begged me to accompany her to Bergdorf Goodman’s Department Store on Fifth Avenue for emotional support
Now, being that the last beauty parlor I was in neighbored a junkyard, I didn’t suspect that there might indeed be a beauty parlor, excuse me, hairstylist,” in a department store. Once more, I reasoned my friend needed emotional support over a death in the family or something of the like – not getting her hair chopped off
But because I’m trying to be a sensitive 1990s kind of fellow, I went along. Frederic Fekkai is the greatest hairdresser in the known universe, according to the women of New York. Amid marble, fresh flowers, and stunning assistants he creates hair masterworks for the rich and famous of New York City.
I was in the wrong place. My haircuts cost 10 bucks and the barber (yes, barber) will even give me a good shave. I suspected Frederic might cost a bit more and take offense to the notion of Barbersol.
As we sat waiting for my friend to be led off to have her hair washed, we were offered drinks and a portable telephone. My friend was upset because her long locks were about to be sacrificed to pageboy chic.
In went a big-haired Alabamian and an hour later she emerged (in tears, of course) a flat-haired New Yorker. All for just $350.
Yes, her hair is now low maintenance and all. But you know, I’m always flattered when a woman takes what seems like an eternity to buff her hair with rollers and spray and Lord-knows-what else. If she likes me enough to create big hair, then I can’t help but be happy.
So there it is Andalusia – here in New York City I’ve come to appreciate that Southern women know how to tease, curl, spray and pick their way to a man’s heart. God bless big hair.