I 22 Hairstyles And I''m Still Not Happy
OVER THE years, I've changed my hairstyle many times and for many reasons; I've changed a lot as a person and, sometimes, changing my hair is a way of physically marking that change to the rest of the world.
I've also changed my hair because I've been a slave to fashion and, occasionally, I've changed my hair to attract a man.
Growing up in south county Dublin in the '70s, I attended a convent school called Rockford Manor, which was like an army barracks run by nuns instead of sergeant majors. There were rules that governed everything from how we dressed to the way we spoke, walked and wore our hair.
I despised everything about that convent – the green-and-gold polyester uniform that was so hot and sticky in the summer, the regulation green knickers that we were forced to wear (I kid you not!), the endless petty rules, the tedious church trips and the constant, palpable pressure to conform to some fantastically misguided, antiquated notion of Ideal Womanhood.
I was determined not to conform and my act of rebellion was to dye my hair platinum blonde. I remember gazing down at my stripey–tied, shiny- shoed, hairneatlyparted, fantastically uncool, tragically unsnogged self every morning and I'd heave a very loud sigh of frustration before meekly trotting off to lessons.
I was the class nerd and I desperately wanted to transform myself from a mousy-haired teenager into someone glamorous, sophisticated and blonde.
It was 1978 when I first saw the film, Grease and I'd become obsessed with Olivia Newton John's transformation from the girl next door into a super-permed, lycra-clad heavily made-up blonde sexpot.
The film made a huge impact on my impressionable teenage mind and I longed for a similar transformation from awkward girl to sophisticated glamourpuss.
I had the iconic poster at the foot of my bed that showed Olivia Newton John and John Travolta locked in a passionate embrace, her lips parted into a glossy smile and her hair a mass of blonde curls. I'd stare up at it longingly every night before I drifted off to sleep, wishing I was her.
By the time I'd reached 15, I had talked my mother into letting me dye my hair.
It did not take much convincing: 'I always thought I'd have a blonde daughter anyway,' she said as she bundled me off to the local hairdresser.
This was one of the most exciting moments of my young life and, to this day, I remember it so clearly.
We arrived at Herman's Hairdressing salon in Blackrock and I booked in to get my very first set of highlights. Looking back, I can pinpoint that as the moment when my love affair with peroxide and perming lotions began.
I sat nervously in the stylist's chair while a 17-year-old trainee highlighter pulled my hair with a crochet hook through what could only be described as a rubber swimming cap. I was about to be transformed, reborn even.
With blonde hair, perhaps, I'd finally get some attention from one of the guys I fancied. Six hours later, the look was complete. The junior assistant who was highlighting my hair left the bleach on too long and I emerged from the salon looking like an albino. The hairstyle, it is rumoured, was visible to astronauts aboard Skylab; my hair was not blonde, it was silver. People stared in the street and told me I was very 'brave'.
The nuns hated it – my mission had been a success.
After that, my hair became a bit of an obsession and this is something of which I am not proud. It is shallow. It is vain and ridiculous. And there are myriad other, better things with which to be occupying the diminishing neurons of my brain than doing battle with the twin pillars of hair envy ('Why does she have such a perky bob?') and hair yearning ('If I had long hair, I'd be able to find a boyfriend/get a better job/buy a house'). But that has not stopped me and in my quest for the perfect barnet. I've been dyeing my hair for 21 years at this stage and most of my friends have never seen my natural hair colour.
My quest for great hair has, over the years, taken me through a veritable-kaleidoscope of colours and a terrifying directory of styles, as well as extensively plundering my bank account. If I hadn't done much of the work myself, I dread to think how much it would have cost me.
I have been honey blonde, ash blonde, platinum blonde. It's been jet black with long, black extensions and I've even had a head full of funky dreadlocks when I was going through a Rastafarian phase (more about that later). It's been henna-red, strawberry-blonde, mid-brown, purple and orange. I've had it cut short, only to discover that I hated it. Then I've had hundreds of euros worth of extensions put in to give me long hair again – why bother actually growing your hair when you can pay someone to sew it onto your head?
When I was 20, I decided to go to art college in Cork. On the very first day of college, I spied an absolute hunk called Dan and I made it my mission to snare him.
He was tall and lithe, with a strong jawline and huge brown eyes – I was immediately besotted.
I stuffed my bra with tissues, flirted and pouted every time he walked by – but nothing seemed to work. My evangelical zeal in pursuing the object of my desire was allconsuming. I wanted that man and nothing was going to stop me.
So, in a desperate bid to attract his attention, I decided to perm my hair. Spiral perms were all the rage and once I'd seen Julia Robert's cascading ringlets in Pretty Woman I knew that I HAD to have a perm.
I was a poverty-stricken student so I decided to cut costs by getting a home-perming kit.
'This should be easy,' I thought to myself, as I applied the strong smelling chemicals to my hair and waited for an hour or so before revealing my fabulous new look. It was a terrible moment – and it has happened to us all – but when the curlers came off, the devastation was there for all to see. I only wanted a soft perm but now, my thick, glossy locks were a frizzled Afro mess. I was horrified – Dan would never go near me now that I looked like Worzel Gummidge!
I had to wear a head scarf for about eight months. Even now, friends weep hot, emotional tears at the recollection of it. Towards the end of my time at college, I finally got it together with Dan – he liked me even though my hair was a mess…
Art college finished, Dan – who had been over studying from his home in Boston – moved back to America and I was heartbroken.
But within a few weeks of Dan's departure, I unexpectedly fell for a musician/healer called Fabrice. He was possibly one of the most handsome men I'd ever seen and I immediately fell under his spell. He was a hemp-wearing, fluteplaying hippie and I was intrigued by his alternative, eco-friendly lifestyle.
I noticed that all the girls who hung around him were crystal-wearing, freespirited types – so I decided that if I was going to grab his attention, I'd have to do the hippie thing. I persuaded a friend of mine, who was a hairdresser, to put long dreadlocks into my hair. The process took two full days but, at the end of it, I looked like a fully fledged Rastafarian.
Perfect!
I then accessorised my hippie hairdo with '60s-style kaftans, crochet waistcoats, long, flowing skirts, love beads and purple pantaloons – my flower child look was complete. Three days later, I bumped into the delicious Fabrice, busking on Grafton Street. He was suitably impressed with my revamped look and promptly asked me on a date, much to the dismay of the troupe of female groupies who hung on his every word.
They hated me and called me 'The Glippie' – short for 'glamorous hippie'. I had my very own summer of love with Fabrice but, after a while, his self righteous lectures on capitalism, legalising cannabis and animal rights bored me rigid. So I threw out my patchouli oil, cut off the dreadlocks and got a job in the city. Fifteen years later, he's a Hare Krishna.
Over the years, I've had around 22 different hairstyles, and the one thread running through them all is that none of them has ever been quite right – or not, at least, for anything more than a tantalising day, when I am, briefly, lulled into a false sense of hair security before the mirror does its worst.
When I'm brunette, I imagine that blondes really do have more fun and I feel I'm missing out. However, the minute I go blonde, I think that it doesn't suit me and then I want to dye my hair brown again.
Fundamentally, I think it's the lure of the 'other'. People think that the grass is always greener on the other side and I think that may explain why I'm always changing my hair colour.
People find it strange that I change my appearance so much – but, conversely, I think it's weird to stick with the same hairstyle for years.
If you bought a jumper in 1984, wouldn't it be odd if you were still wearing it in 2006? Life is about change and it's important to embrace it rather than fear it and , yes, that applies to hair as much as everything else...
