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Monday, February 02, 2009

From Hair to Here

I was showing my daughter Amy all of my of curlers and rollers last week. I don't even know why I have kept them all these years. I'm not a big collector of things, but hair is a woman's crowning glory and I spent a lot of time with these things. I was either a little sentimental or just never got around to throwing them out, I'm not sure which. This is my graduation picture. It took so much time to achieve this look. You had to curl, tease, spray, tease again, hold it with a clip until it dried and spray again. Then you had to tease the underside and brush up for that perfect flip.... and both sides had to match. It was a feat in itself.So, how do you get from this hairdo....

to this one? Let's take the journey.

These are the tools I use now. A hair blower and round brush and I touch up with a large barreled curling iron. You blow, wrap the hair around the brush and you are done in 20 minutes.

Back in the 80's, I couldn't get ready without my hot rollers. You put a little water and maybe some conditioner in the base and when the whole inside was steamy, the rollers (filled with hot wax) were ready to use. They worked quickly but the heat was not particularly good for your hair.

In high school, we wrapped our tresses around fruit juice cans to get a big enough curl. We looked rather odd walking around. And we did walk around in them. (What were we thinking?)We would even go shopping in them sometimes. We used the big hood hairdryers or the ones with a hose going into the cap and it took a long time to dry. Well if you didn't have time to sit under the dryer, you just went and did your errands until it was dry. We didn't have the tools we use now. We've come a long way baby. And, no, we couldn't pick up the radio signal from KOMA in Oklahoma.

Before the juice cans, I used these "magnetic rollers". I don't know why they called them that because there was nothing magnetic about them. They were smooth like the juice cans. It was hard to keep them in your hair. We used clippies to hold them in.


Before the magnetic rollers, I used these. They really held the hair in place, but the spikes were very hard, you had a head ache before your hair was dry. I didn't use these for long.

These were the rollers I used for many years. They were a mesh plastic with a metal coil and a brush inside. They held well, they came in lots of sizes and we actually slept in them. I don't know how we did it. Anything for beauty I guess. The open design let the air circulate and by morning your "DO" was done.


Remember these? They have been around forever. I used these when I wanted curls, and even used them on my daughters when they were little. They were soft so you could sleep in them and they were gentle on your hair. The problem was, you didn't have much control how your hair looked when they came out. They were good for little girl ringlets.


I told Amy that my hot rollers still worked if she wanted to give them a try. She is in the process of growing out her hair and it's at that mid length that's hard to do anything with. She gave it a "go" and this is the result. We had a good laugh. She just needs to learn the tricks. You can't just curl the upper level and leave the bottom hanging out.

Just a little wild!

Now what does she do?

Oops! This did not work out the way she had hoped.


Well, it may be time to try the mesh rollers or the juice cans.