The Bigfoot of Hair Lore

I did not win the hair lottery in my family. My sisters, my mom, nieces,  cousins, nephews, aunts, and even uncles all have just incredible amounts of  thick, shiny hair. My sisters and niece have  long lengths of these massive locks.  Just like a horse’s ass…I mean tail, a horse’s tail. I, on the other hand, have enough hair to (mostly) keep my scalp from getting burned. Also, enough to catch sweat when I am at the gym, but not enough to keep me from looking like Gollum when I leave.

My mom tells me when I was born with  a little platinum halo. Probably closer to peach fuzz, but I had some, and I do use this term loosely,  hair. My sisters both  were born with what appeared to be baby toupees. They looked ridiculous. Of course I was cuter. Plus I had dimples. Who needs hair when you have dimples. As I hit the  post toddler years, I did enjoy a brief period of beautiful golden curls. My hair was the color of the sun. People wept. It truly was that powerful.

Even an elderly  neighbor commented  to my mother that our ugly duckling has turned into a swan. My mom tells me this often as if its a sweet memory. All I hear is Ugly Duckling?!?! What the hell Mrs McCoy?? I was BALD, not UGLY!!! She was apparently too old  and blind to notice the dimples.  However, my mom also told me Mrs McCoy walked to the liquor store once a day and carried a pistol in her apron  that she always wore, so… maybe, just maybe,  Mrs. McCoy could say whatever the hell she wanted.

The “good hair years” did not last unfortunately. Whether it was age, hormones, teenagers, or just life, my hair has gotten thinner and more fine. Now that grey has joined the party, it is just a disaster. If any of you are not yet familiar with fine grey hair, let me fill  you in… it does what it wants. It is wiry, very vibrant and is not listening to any of the styling rules the rest of your hair does. It is quite similar to a Mrs. McCoy, it does what it wants and no one is brave enough to stop it because you are just happy its still there. So picture thin, fine, curly/frizzy hair. Jealous aren’t you?

Fast forward to yesterday when I got an unplanned haircut. Unplanned, not because I was attacked and given a haircut against my will, but because of historic flooding, and band camp, and trying three times to get my daughters’ haircuts all ending multiple phone calls and no haircuts for anyone.  There were cancellations and rescheduled meetings at work. Long story shorten, I took one of their appointments because I felt bad for cancelling again and I did, in fact, NEED a haircut.  Earlier in the day,  I made the final call to reschedule  for me to use one of the appointments. The historic flooding is making trips to town more planned. Shortly after making my appointment I see I missed a call from the salon. Not wanting to make an unnecessary trip, I returned the call  I missed from the salon.  I  could not really hear what the nice receptionist was trying to tell me because I was literally in a disposable hazmat suit about to enter the CVOR and do science. (Science is my favorite). All I could ascertain was someone other than my regular stylist would be available, and if this was okay? I told her that would be fine and went on about my day.

I immediately recognized the stylist that would be cutting my hair that day as “Sam” (some names have been changed to protect the innocent). Sam is a nice, young, black stylist that always has someone in his chair. I have seen more than one of his clients give him a hug before they leave. What luck!?! Never have I had the urge to hug my stylist, but maybe Sam was the miracle worker my hair has needed all its life.  As I sat down,  the concern written all over Sam’s face was very evident. Even before he introduced himself or asked what I had in mind, he quite abruptly blurted out, with fear, disdain, and a little wonderment I believe, “Is that a cowlick”? As I told my friend, it was like he had heard of such hair defects, but had never actually seen one in the wild.  He will now have stories to tell his grandchildren.  Little did he know, but he was about to find out  I have at least 4 cowlicks. Truly the Bigfoot of hairstyling lore.

Sam is a true professional and pulled himself together to evaluate the rest of my hair. He holds up the ends and is silent for just a little too long. It is 4:45 on a Friday afternoon. I sit in his chair, a chair normally filled with heads of full, long, straight hair of youthful women. Yet here I am between Sam and his weekend looking like an old, possibly sick, alpaca. He, trying to retain composure, finally asked What is the plan? Not, do you have a style in mind, but more like, what do you expect me to do with this? I told him I just want a trim and a protein treatment. His exaggerated questions  made me secretly giggle. “Treatment for what? Strength? Damage? Volume? Shine?  He was like… old lady I am not a miracle worker. Your hair needs an exorcist, not a stylist. I told him to give me whatever he though was best. He sighed the sigh of a man with a burden too great at such a young age, but we made our way to the hair washing station.

The amount of shampoo that was applied to my head seemed…  extremely abundant. His hands could not get through the lather to my scalp. My hair was not dirty. Maybe he thought he could will or wash my hair into better condition. Maybe he thought I was homeless because no professional person would walk around with their hair resembling a sheep’s ass. He left me to work my neck muscles holding this  five pounds of shampoo in my hair. I hear glass and containers clanking around. Apparently he was doing science as well. I also hear a cart being wheeled over. Maybe drinks were about to be served. Sadly, no. Just everything in the back he thought might could fix the evil that resided on my head.  It only took about 15 minutes to rinse that amount of shampoo out of my hair. He then applied whatever “protein”  concoction he just whipped together. Then… he just wondered away. He was gone for quite longer than normal.  I think I dosed off.   The lava hot towel that was placed over my hair  startled me awake. After a brief assessment, it was decided the magic potion needed a bit longer to work.

What seemed like two hours later, I was finally in the master’s chair. I thought I heard sobbing, but I wasn’t  sure. As my hair is being brushed out, Sam asks, which side do you part “this” on. Not how do I part my hair, but how do you part this? I told him to the right separating the greater and lesser cowlicks. As he is separating my hair into pieces and pinning them he says out loud what I think he intended to be internal… what are these waves here? He had found the other cowlicks. I think he considered running. I did see him look around at the other stylist, maybe hoping he was on an episode of “Punked”. No one was making eye contact. Sam was on his own. All of his training was about to be put to the ultimate test.

I heard scissors clinking, but I did not see any hair falling. I did hear quite a few heavy sighs, and maybe a mumbled prayer or two. He announces he has to dry it a bit because it is curling a bit. Ok… do what you have to do. I feel him add quite a bit of product to my hair. I’m not sure what the product was, but it was quite a bit. He dries, adds product, dries a little more, adds product. I think he is uses all the tricks he knows and maybe making up a few on the fly. He cuts my dried hair for about 20 minutes. I have 8 hairs, only 4 when the split ends are removed.  Sam had been brushing, combing, snipping, and product-ing one section of the back of my hair for about five minutes when he finally says, I cannot get this one section straight. I have nothing else to do. Now, me, being used to the enigma that my hair is, am shocked he got it down to just one small section. I assure him it is okay. He, looking quite defeated, and passed me the mirror.

In all my years of getting my haircut, no one…NO ONE… had been able to tame the greater cowlick. My hair was flat in the front. My hair was heavy and had so…much…product.. but was flat. I was quite honestly speechless. I thanked him profusely. His demeanor had changed. I think my hair broke this nice man’s spirit. He had looked into the face of monster and will be forever changed. Hopefully I tipped Sam enough to compensate for the battle he waged on old, frizzy, sick alpaca hair. He looked different.

The cowlick remained defeated throughout the evening, but at a price. As mentioned earlier, my hair is very fine. What this mean, to those of you that have normal hair, is to condition my hair, I hold the conditioner bottle for about five seconds, never actually putting conditioner on my hair because it will make it appear “greasy”. With this in mind and knowing how much product was put in my hair, my hair was slowly sliding down and kind of sticking together. Not like honey, but just a dense, flat, heavy clump. It was late, I was tired, and went to bed. This morning, when I looked in the mirror, I actually was startled. My hair would not have looked more grease ridden if I dumped a bottle of vegetable oil on it. After 3 washings, the feel of my hair returned and it is so soft… O..M…G it feels like bunny fur. It is soft, shiny, and still cowlick ridden. Two out of three isn’t bad. I would like to think that my grey, curly, frizzy, cowlicked hair gave Sam a new sense of purpose and feeling of accomplishment. Thanks Sam.

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