Bad Hair Days

My whole life's dream as a little girl was to have flowing locks of long hair. I adored long hair and envied anyone who had hair below their shoulders. My hair has always been baby fine and very thin. Not only was it fine and thin, but I grew up in the 80's which means I was getting perms by the time I was in 3rd grade. Not even standard quality salon perms, but home perms. Bad home perms. My poor hair was so over processed that it simply did not grow. In fact, it broke off from all the chemicals so it actually got shorter rather than longer. My mom determined it was very necessary for me to have perms because it contributed to my hair having some volume. So instead of looking like a skinned rat, I looked like a skinned rat with cancer.

Fast forward to 9th grade and the 9th grade dance. For this special occasion, my mom takes me to the salon to get yet another perm (a fresh perm so I have more volume). This time, the perm does not take quite so well and my hair is rather limp. A few days later, we return to the salon to inquire why my hair is so limp and the dumbass REPERMS my hair. Imagine all those chemicals on baby fine hair in just a matter of a few days! And that, my friends, was the beginning of many awkward photos.



I can't even believe I am putting this horrid picture out there for all the interwebs to see, but you needed the picture to get the full effect of what a bad hair day really is. Unfortunately, there are worse pictures of me out there somewhere.

See, what happened is that those perms broke off all the hair on one side of my head so I went through all of Jr. High School with crooked hair. Kids were kind. I didn't even get teased. But I should have.

Of course we (my mom and I) didn't think that all these perms were damaging my hair, and we thought something was medically wrong with me. Or that I was lacking in some hair vitamin. Oh, I even had lab draws to determine why my hair was so awful, but all came back normal. Then it was recommended by that same dumbass beautician that we send samples of my hair in to some obscure lab to be tested. So for the bargain price of $10, I let that lady take 4 separate hunks of hair from each part of my head. Right down to the scalp. It was all I could do to sacrifice all of that hair because I needed every little strand of hair possible. So away to a lab went my hunks of hair.

The results came back saying that my hair did not have a medulla. Apparently that is the middle shaft of a single strand of hair, and it holds a curl. My hair is unlike most peoples' hair in that the more you try to curl it, the straighter it gets, which would also explain why instead of getting nice curls with my perms, I would get frizz. Along with a medulla deficiency I had very "fragile" hair.

That was the end of my perms. Unfortunately not the end of my bad hair days. They are getting better, but I still live in the 90's and have some lingering effects of the infamous "mall bang" look. Oh, I have tried and tried to give myself make overs and get a different, more updated hair style, but my hair doesn't work like that. And I am so petrified of having more pictures like the one I just posted for all the world to see. I can't believe I actually posted that picture. Don't use it to blackmail me, please!

(Just as an *aside*....those suspender pants I am wearing were MC Hammer meets Zubaz. They were big and flare-y and cost me a lot of money!)