My heart is in the 1960s, where there were all sorts of exciting new hairstyles — bouffant bubbles, Sassoon geometry, Twiggy, Afros, all that hippie stuff. Later decades had less to offer. For years, I've been exasperated by the persistence of a style that was known in the 1950s as "bedroom hair." It's long and rather bendy and uncombed. When will it end? Why can't something inventively new blow it away?
That was my thought process that led me to the Allure article. Excerpt: "We've been seeing mullets everywhere lately. The modern-day version of the cut that defined the '80s is a little more chill, though...."
Click through to see the photographs. You'll see women who are beautiful despite their haircuts. What a mistake to think you could look like them by getting their haircut. I'd like to see photos of a haircut that makes an ordinary looking woman striking.
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I wonder if you'll see that in the next year. So many of us have quarantine hair (again) and our stylists/barbers/beauticians/etc. have been starved for work. And we're bored. You might see a burst of creativity as this situation works itself out.
Almost Fonda Klutian.
Check out The Makeover Guy on YouTube.
Christopher, “Where did you come in from today?”
AA, “I drove in from Madison with my dear husband. My heart is in the 60s. So many great hairstyles. I don’t like ‘bedroom hair’.”
Concerning hair, my wife is jealous of our daughter. Not because of her thick head of hair, but because her husband tells her how to wear it. I dont care. My wife equates my ambivalence to her hair style, as an indicator of my level of affection for her. (forty years of marriage means less than my input on her hair style)
I emailed Ted Cruz the other day: Yes to the beard, no to the hairdo.
My heart is in the 60's.
Yes, we know. ;-)
With the Communist Party Chinese Flu epidemic I have been getting great new hairstyles from Mrs. Forward. Currently I’m rocking the guinea pig special. On the upside I don’t look anything like the picture on my drivers license.
It's kind of like getting beauty tips from Cindy Crawford. The last new hairstyle I can remember is "The Rachel." Wasn't a fan. The other problem was Aniston's hair was done by a high-end celebrity stylist. The ones the chain salons were producing among the masses were not quite as attentive to detail. There's a reason some people could charge $50 and some people could charge $500. It's the difference between bespoke and off-the-rack.
I think the easiest way to get a striking before-and-after haircut photo is take a man with long hair and facial hair and give him a cut and a shave. He'll look 100% better 99% of the time. For women, I always think straightening curly hair tends to be an improvement.
Mullets jumped the shark (again). Hipster dipshits were growing ironic mullets years ago. It's the PBR of haircuts.
Farmer asserts: I think the easiest way to get a striking before-and-after haircut photo is take a man with long hair and facial hair and give him a cut and a shave. He'll look 100% better 99% of the time.
I'd say most men look better with facial hair. But, then, I'm only a woman so what do I know?
I disagree with almost everything in this post, except that the mullet hairstyle is horrible and the women with it are beautiful despite it.
And I'm with mock turtle. I actually like men with a little longer hair and facial hair. It depends on the guy of course. But a little scruffy is nice (see, for example, Jon Snow and Rege-Jean Page)
I have barber scissors by the computer and just cut whatever feels too long. Facial hair is regulated by the 10 day temperature forecast as bike riding face protection.
Click through to see the photographs. You'll see women who are beautiful despite their haircuts.
Largely true of women's fashion in general. For women, new, more expensive and exotic clothing appears to be a signaling to other women, and not to men. Being a man, I'm not the intended audience.
"The last new hairstyle I can remember is "The Rachel.""
Aniston herself didn't like it, and for most of the seasons of "Friends," she did not have that haircut. It was very hard to maintain, even for her. As a haircut, it didn't work. It had to be maintained.
If you know the HBO sitcom "The Comeback" — with that other "Friends" star, Lisa Kudrow — you'll remember the character Valerie Cherish, who'd once been the star of a sitcom called "I'm It," and she has this elaborate piece-y haircut and a hairdresser, Mickey, who follows her around fixing and arranging it constantly.
What matters more than the hairstyle in the photos is the pose accentuating the full lips. The hairstyle is practically an afterthought.
When I say "My heart is in the 1960s," I don't mean that I want a 60s hairstyle now or want anyone else to go with 60s hairstyles. I mean I loved the constant change and innovation and I got the idea that would continue and there would be great new stuff in later decades. It didn't happen, and that's sad.
This point holds true for clothing and music too. And also ideas, I think.
It may be that everything's more exciting and interesting to a teenager and I just got older, but I think it's not just my subjectivity here.
It may be that everything's more exciting and interesting to a teenager and I just got older
I think its a lot of this.
The 60s were a time of change, but I think a lot of people really sucked during the sixties. And assassinations were a part of that, of the general suckle of people.
"For years, I've been exasperated by the persistence of a style"
And there you have it, gents. What exasperates women, as Freud didn't ask? The persistence of a hairstyle.
Keep it in mind in case anyone ever argues again that there are no essential differences between men and women.
General suckage of people.
JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcom X, Medgar Evars. Was there a more assassinaty time? People were so discontented.
Fascinating that basic haircuts have special names. I stopped coloring my hair and have grown out the length over the past year. I just ask for a trim and thin the top, since my hair is heavy when longer. No special name, just dealing with my hair. Many of the styles in the article seemed just like that to me.
Loved the pic of the woman flipping the bird and Bella see-through outfit in the article though. Way to stay on topic! /sarc
Veronica Lake....
I loved the constant change and innovation and I got the idea that would continue and there would be great new stuff in later decades. It didn't happen, and that's sad.
The past's view of future fashion was all of us in shiny one-piece zip-ups.
It may be that everything's more exciting and interesting to a teenager and I just got older, but I think it's not just my subjectivity here.
It's not wise to take risks in the time of cancel culture.
Equity demands uniformity.
JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcom X, Medgar Evars. Was there a more assassinaty time?
Cancel culture of the time.
"I loved the constant change and innovation"
Constant change: what could be more meaningful?
For those of us a little less enamored by the ministrations of the culture industry busily coopting eager teenage consumers--another hairstyle! another hit song! another drug to try! mini skirts! no, maxi skirts! no, hot pants! change, constant change!--the 1960s arouse more mixed feelings. The unmooring of the culture really started then. Worked out nicely for the Althouses, not so nicely for many others. It also kept the Althouses on the prog side of the subsequent culture wars: progs were for "innovation," after all, and the right were the boring, stodgy 60s apostates. Dull deplorables don't love constant change: 'nuff said.
"Asymmetrical Bob."
Hey, how'd they learn the nickname for my penis?
Bed hair is sexy on young women and they know it. I don’t know why they’d want to give it up for more structured or styled dos. Plus as Althouse noted at 7:12 they take a lot of work. Those 60 styles are fun to look at now but I remember the time spent working on them plus the cans of AquaNet necessary to maintain them. Isn’t the bedroom hair just a continuation of the 60s cool girl style of Anita Pallenberg? It looks great.
Oh! The people really enjoying a new emergence of great hairstyles is black men. So many options and ways to look great. I love it.
"Bed hair is sexy on young women and they know it. I don’t know why they’d want to give it up for more structured or styled dos."
Yes, if you picture the ideal — I'd say Brigitte Bardot — it's very attractive. But I'm talking about that bend-y, chest-long hair, arrived at through extensions that I see on all sorts of women who are appearing on TV to talk about serious things. I don't think these women look sexy. I think they look disorganized and unprofessional.
It's not as though everything else is structured and overstyled. In fact, what they have looks very fussed with and gorilla-glued into place. Along with it comes extremely heavy makeup, with fake eyelashes and fake contouring. If this has anything to do with real sexiness, it's a long lost dream.
This article focuses on haircuts, but I would say this decade the biggest hair trend has been color not cut. Bright pinks and blues, deep purples, multi hued hair, bleached tips....I see lots of people of both sexes and all ages sporting dyed hair in ways which the point is not to look natural.
"Those 60 styles are fun to look at now but I remember the time spent working on them plus the cans of AquaNet necessary to maintain them."
That was true of the early 60s teased bouffants, but they were replaced (among fashionable people) by the "natural look," which was done with a great haircut and not with teasing or hairspray. The change occurred in the early/mid 60s. Then there were very short cuts — I highlighted Sassoon and Twiggy — and these were cut very skillfully to avoid the need for spray and forcing into place. There was a lot of talk at the time of men wanting to be able to touch women's hair and really liking women who let wind blow through their hair without worrying about it getting messed up. That was the mid 60s. Late 60s was letting it grow out big and as rough or curly as it wanted to be. You found out how many women had curly hair that they had fought into submission. That's what the song "Hair" was about.
The pixie cut works to draw attention to the face of a woman who is already beautiful.
What they call a mullet we always called a shag cut. And the mullets in the article are wigs, which is a different topic than a haircut.
I always wanted Marilyn's hair, or Lana's. They'd brush it in the movies and it would stay perfect. Wavy, platinum, sporty, and sexy.
I just thought of bed hair as messy and not fussy. It’s not a professional look at all but great for students and artists who drive trends. I was unaware that the extensions and overly done type hair was called bedroom hair and yes, that style is unattractive. Patti Smith was never conventionally beautiful but when she was young her hair was messy and great and she looked perfect . Reminds me of the line from Werewolves of London.
"I always wanted Marilyn's hair, or Lana's. They'd brush it in the movies and it would stay perfect. Wavy, platinum, sporty, and sexy."
Marilyn's classic look was done with rollers. This was called "setting" your hair. You roll it up when it's wet, let it dry, perhaps under a hair dryer. When the hair is dry, you take out the rollers and brush it and arrange it the way you want. The waves should hold because of the rolling. You could also spray it in place. There might also be "setting lotion" put on the wet hair. Lots of women would also put the rollers into dry hair at night and sleep on the damned things. There were some spongey rollers to make that less uncomfortable.
@mockturtle:
I'd say most men look better with facial hair. But, then, I'm only a woman so what do I know?
As the corpulent, closeted Hector remarked in Alan Bennett's The History Boys, "what women know or don't know has always been a mystery to me."
I was mostly referring to long hair and a lot of facial hair. I think it's very difficult for a man to pull off a long hairdo. And especially hard to do with a bushy beard. It obscures all the angles to the face.
Facial hair with a short haircut is a different story. I've never seen my father without a full beard, including photographs. I've worn a full goatee for about a decade now. I won't mention at whose insistence ;)
I had a pixie when quarantine started. Didn't have a cut for 15 weeks. So now I've got a bob. I can spread out my appointments more now.
Thank goodness I don't color.
I must confess that I am currently relying on this exact Brigitte Bardot hairdo — from 1966.
what do you call that one where the woman has a buzz cut on one side of her head, and dyes part of the rest of her hair green or pink? That is a particularly unattractive haircut. But possibly that's the purpose -- a feminist statement.
The British comedy Fleabag has an episode where the sister of the main character gets an extreme geometric cut and blames the stylist for destroying her life but the stylist digs out the photo she showed him and it is exactly what she asked for only on a beautiful model. The stylist says “hair isn’t everything” and the character replies “no, hair is EVERYTHING!”.
1. Someone please tell the women of the world that eyebrows the width and thickness of area rugs are not attractive.
2. Beautiful women are beautiful despite their haircuts. A nice haircut will not save an ugly woman.
There are different hairstyle that improve or exaggerate different categories of homeliness.
Choose wisely.
We just need better Gorilla Glue. Technology has let us down.
Click through to see the photographs. You'll see women who are beautiful despite their haircuts.
This is what gets me. Women used to (at least during my youth in the 80's) wear hairstyles and clothes based on their face shape and body type. Now it seems to be either about going with what's popular or done in the mistaken belief that adopting a particular celebrity hairstyle will make them look like that celebrity.
She's bald!
It's obvious that a number of these are wigs. I guess it might still be a 'trend', but it makes a difference to me if the model/star/whatever hasn't actually committed her own hair to the particular style.
In this marriage, I've got the hair. My wife, poor woman, has struggled all her life to give some shape and body to the thin "hairlike substance" that nature gave her.
For a long time, she could get a good if temporary effect after a few hours of torturing the poor stuff, but she has gradually weaned herself from the stylist's ministrations--she of the expensive but short-lived cut and color.
Our son got hair more like mine than hers--lucky guy.
Narr
I sport a 'stache and soul patch so my dimpled chin shows
My mother tells a story about a good friend of hers. This woman happened to be a hair stylist and at one time was almost famous and rather uppity about it.
Does anyone remember the "Dorothy Hamill" hair style? It was kind of a longer pixie cut. Just long enough that it flowed a little when she skated. Really a cute style, too.
Anyway, my mother's friend became locally famous, maybe even regionally famous, for being able to do the "Dorothy Hamill" very well. People from even a couple hundred miles away would come to get their hair done by her, in the "Dorothy Hamill" hair style.
So, one day this petite brunette walks in to the salon and my mom's friend looks up at her and exclaims "you have almost the perfect 'Dorothy Hamill'!"
To which the woman responds, "I hope so. I am Dorothy Hamill."
Always loved that story.
Apropos of nothing. Just yet another old-ish (70s, I think), hair style, that they don't do anymore.
Blogger NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...
"This is what gets me. Women used to (at least during my youth in the 80's) wear hairstyles and clothes based on their face shape and body type. Now it seems to be either about going with what's popular or done in the mistaken belief that adopting a particular celebrity hairstyle will make them look like that celebrity."
I recently came across an archived style insert from a 40s/50s era ladies' magazine which gave in-depth instructions/illustrations on how to choose hats/hairstyles/dress necklines based on one's physical characteristics. It was blunt and no-nonsense but I can see how it would be a relief to have clear guidelines on what worked and what didn't. Now those illustrations would be considered cruel and self-esteem killing.
I always wanted the Dorothy Hamill haircut when I was a kid, but I am one of those unlucky people cursed with hair that has a perennially bad attitude. My hair grows in a forward direction with a slight wave that behaves differently on the left versus the right side of my head, a dent in my crown, and three cowlicks to subdue. A pixie is really the only thing I can wear that keeps all of these issues in check. I've had some version of it since I was in third grade.
Long and beautiful plumage. A ponytail in a pinch... swish, swish h/t Laslo
Male here, with 61 year old hair that is now fully grey. I've been entertaining myself in the time of COVID by competing with my 30ish son in growing out our hair. I've got an undercut (clippers, #1 setting, all the way around, what used to be called 'high and tight') going that leaves the hair atop my head now 8" long. With a little styling I can manage a Karen. My son, whose wavy/curly hair puts my straight, lifeless locks to shame, looks wonderful.
"I'd like to see photos of a haircut that makes an ordinary looking woman striking. " Couldn't agree more. That's what we used to rifle through fashion magazines for, amiright?
But now ugly is the new pretty. The half shaved miley cyrus thingy that makes me retch when I see someone in it. It's like wearing psychosis on your sleeve.
In the sixties, I had a "Sassoon". I've always kept my hair pretty short, as it's nothing to write home about, texture wise...but then about 10 years ago, I rejected anything that smacked of modernity, and have worn a simple french twist ever since.
Many of the big hair styles in the 60's and 80's can't be reproduced because the AquaNet Hair Spray formula that permitted such styles is now banned. We didn't want to kill the ozone layer. The current hair spray and other styling products make it very difficult to create intricate hair styles. I have found that the key is fining a hair stylist/colorist that is experienced enough to guide one to find the most flattering option for your own lifestyle, features, skin tone, and facial shape. Many times it is women who refuse good advice that make the worst hair mistakes. :/
I never associated the "Big Hair" of the '80s with the baroque or rococo styles of the '60s - it was just more hair, without much of a style there that I could see - but the connection is interesting.
I guess the Twiggy short hair phenomenon and the earthy, natural straight hair style of the late '60s dealt a one-two punch to the earlier bouffants and beehives, and feminism delivered the knock out blow.
The last big hairstyle was probably Jennifer Aniston's "Rachel." The fragmentation of the TV market made it unlikely that anything like that could come along again.
The history of Black hair is different and more complicated. In this, too, we remain a divided nation.
What I don't get is the trend in recent years of women having eyebrows the size of recumbent otters.
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