Hair
What does all that cutting and dyeing MEAN? If anything.
When I started cutting my own hair during the pandemic, I didn’t think of it as a political act of anti-capitalism. I didn’t feel rebellious or even particularly purposeful about it. I was unemployed and didn’t want to spend money on a haircut. Also, I was bored and bangs seemed like a good idea, so I watched a video, and despite all dire warnings that cutting your own bangs is a disaster waiting to happen, it turned out great. I followed the steps and got the desired results, with not much prior experience cutting hair.
I have never liked going to get my hair done.
I get antsy sitting still in the chair, I always think I look weird in the mirror, and making conversation with the stylist exhausts me, no matter how pleasant and gregarious they are. I have paid over $250 for this experience. Highlighting long hair takes hours of tedious work painting four hairs at a time with noxious chemicals and folding them into foil; it’s understandably expensive.
It wasn’t always this way. When I was a kid, my mom cut my hair, along with my sister’s and my dad’s. Dad cut Mom’s hair. I come from a long line of do-it-yourselfers, when it comes to hair, cleaning house, fixing plumbing, laying bricks, etc., etc. It’s in my blood right next to the Irish penchant for functional alcoholism. I only started paying to have my hair done when, as an adult it began slowly darkening from its sparkling blonde color.
At first, I used leave in spray or lemon juice and the sun to lighten it. When I got out of school and had a full-time adult paycheck, I got it highlighted. My cut-and-dye job went from around $100 in 1998 to close to $300 by 2019. The last time I , handed over my credit card at the end, my scalp still burning, it made me a little sick to my stomach.
Side note: Having your hair “stripped” is akin to flaying all the skin off your scalp, then dousing it in rubbing alcohol. Do not recommend.
I valued the stylist’s time and skill.
She did something to my hair I hadn’t the knowledge, dexterity, or patience to do myself. Also though, I was paying the equivalent of my 1996 rent to lighten my hair and cater to internalized cultural norms I could summarize as “blonde hair = youth = beauty = attention = value.” Cultural norms that were not going to pay for my kids’ club soccer fees, put them through college, or take care of me in my old age.
During the pandemic, it got even harder to get my hair done.
So, looking for entertainment, fun, a change, I cut myself bangs and died my hair purple. Then, I remembered the trick mom told me about years ago:
Bend forward and flip your hair over your head.
Comb it out.
Cut it straight across.
Flip it back, and you’ve got layers.
It required a little clean-up at the ends, post flip-back, but it worked nicely, and that’s how I’ve cut my hair for the past five years. Does it look “salon quality?” No. But it’s good enough for my eye.
Somewhere in there, I got tired of the laborious and messy process of hair dye and have now grown it out to, for the first time in decades, its natural color. Which is brown. I have one or two gray hairs and am curious to see how that progresses.
The anti-capitalism part, I only considered in retrospect.
But it’s important. In this whole banal story of hair, it’s the only reason these words are worthy of time and digital paper. Cutting my own hair isn’t going to start a revolution or even save me from financial destitution, but it’s a start. And it’s representative of a more pervasive mentality.
In this world of increasing specialization, there are some things it is categorically inadvisable to do yourself — knee surgery, say, or even designing your own website, depending on your skillset. But we sell ourselves short when we let capitalism tell us we need to hire someone else for everything that is not our day jobs. When we let capitalism undermine our ability to do things for ourselves, if not in perfect fashion, in a way that’s at least passable.
Women have been the target of this tactic more than men, for services from everything from our cars to our fingernails. It’s an effective mixture that plays on our insecurity, convincing us,
A) Something is wrong with our physical appearance.
B) Professional services are required to remedy this shortcoming.
Hair is a perfect example.
Its lavish care is not a necessity, like food and water, or even an ostensible, modern necessity, like electricity and internet access. I can pay very little attention to my hair and still live in this world just fine. And while many professional services are marketed as time savers, paying someone else to do fancy things to my hair does not save time; I still have to spend hours sitting in a salon chair. At home it takes me ten minutes, without an appointment, standing in my bathtub.
I’ve done a lot of things in recent years to free up time, brain space, and money for the things I value most — connection with my family and writing. Not spending hours in a stylist’s chair (when I don’t even enjoy it) is one of them.
Look, if you enjoy getting your hair done, great. Maybe you have a rich relationship with your hair person and find spending time with them enjoyable and relaxing. Wonderful. My point is not hair exactly. My point is that it would do us good to examine the things we spend our time and money on and question them. Does it feed our soul? Does it support us in some real way, emotionally or financially? I mean REALLY.
Not just in a way we rationalize.
I could say that having my hair all blonde and professionally coifed makes me feel attractive or that I need that physical image to do well in my profession. Those are logical arguments, but for me at least, they aren’t the whole truth. When I look underneath those, I see that I don’t like getting my hair done, I feel terrible about spending the money, and I feel much better having let that go. Things like hair maintenance are often packaged as self-care, but it doesn’t feel like that to me. I get much more, self-care wise, out of meditating, napping, taking a long bath, or reading something relaxing.
Reflect on what you spend your money on…
Especially when it comes to commercialized beauty. Ask yourself if that time and effort is well-spent. What could you be doing instead that would fill your soul, increase your life satisfaction? Maybe it’s a “to-do” list type of item, or maybe it’s spending more time playing in your garden or watching tv with your kids.
I started this essay the way I did because I wanted to be clear, I didn’t stop going to the salon on some lofty, self-righteous mission. When I change things in my life, it never starts with “let’s stick it to the man.” It starts internally — with a deeply-felt sense that the way I’m doing it isn’t working for me — no matter how it might look externally. And the result is something that feels like real freedom. Freedom, that is, from that mythical man we’re always trying to stick it to.
Wonderful and relatable as always! I love how resourceful your parents were while you were growing up. Mine were on board with the “saving money” part but never taught me how to do anything myself. We just went without. So now getting my nails and hair done (the latter being less important to me) are my self care. I’ve had the same nail tech for years and feel close to everyone in the salon. And it’s a perfectly manicured middle finger to how I was raised, ie not feeling worthy of any self care time. Massages are on that list too but I rarely indulge that much! Again, great article as always!
💜Catherine
Self Reliance keeps me more physically fit, more solvent, more of a hermit, and less subject to the communicable diseases of the Great Unwashed. Some upstart philosopher from the lower middle classes opined that "it's not what you make, it's what you keep." I do a variety of things my peers farm out (tree trimming and removal; oil changes and various repairs on mowers, vehicles, tools; house maintenance) and though I will admit to this being a shallow reason for existence, I have less time than most to allow my senior brain to observe my uselessness to society. My wife cuts my hair so she's got REAL purpose, and is known as the fastest draw on her mop in the county.