Wednesday, April 06, 2005

All You Ever Wanted To Know About What’s Involved In Washing My Hair

Hair wash day is not my favorite day. Super grateful for the thick healthy head of hair passed down to me by my Grandpa, I am less grateful for the care and feeding of this hair, and although I have cut back from years of daily or every-other-day hairwashing (not to mention an average forty-five minutes of blowdrying per wash), there is still more time and effort involved than interests me. (Note: I am equally uninterested in makeup, however, I am even more uninterested in the way I look without it. My awesome husband seems to care less one way or the other, and thus has relieved me of the need to wear mascara on all but the dressiest occasions, the most time-intensive portion of the makeup process, so I’ve gotten the makeup down to five-six minutes max and sometimes I’ll even go as far as the Jewel without any at all. Gasp!). First I have to brush out my hair, tangled from three days of not washing. (I can’t brush my hair after I shampoo because it becomes huge and hideously triangular.) It takes a good bit of work to both lather and rinse all the shampoo out (and needless to day there’s no way I’d repeat). Then I have to find something to do while I wait for the conditioner to condition. Then, I comb it just enough to smooth it down a little, I heat up the flat iron to use on just a few bits in the front, and finish with some Aveda for further smoothing. After a half-hour or so of air-drying, a scrunchie becomes involved in the process for even further smoothing. Later in the day, the scrunchie is removed for the final drying process. (My hair has been known to stay damp for the better part of an entire day.) (And note: although I have been seen at the Jewel in it, sans makeup, the scrunchie is in no way utilized as fashion, it is strictly a processing device.) By this time, I am so hungry and so ready for coffee I can barely stand up, and this, as I said, is a process that is considerably shorter than it was back in the days when I blew out my whole head and also spent some time getting my bangs to fluff up, not unlike Melanie Griffith in the pre-corporate makeover part of Working Girl. Oh yes.
So. Most weeks, I wash my hair on Tuesdays and Fridays. I wash my hair on Tuesdays and Fridays because I figure if I wash it on Tuesday it’s clean for most of the week and if I wash it on Friday it’s clean for the weekend. Mondays I don’t tend to have a great need for clean hair. However, I am flexible, and if occasion calls for modifying my hair-washing schedule, I will do so. This week, for example, I had a photo shoot on Monday. For Chicago Social! Generally I consider myself much more Chicago than Social, but since this seemed to qualify for hair schedule modification, I washed my hair Monday morning this week. Unfortunately, I have several events this week and over the weekend, and I find myself mentally challenged as far as hair-washing goes. It tends to work out that day two or three after the hair-washing are best but that after that we move from sexy bedhead into unsexy badhead. So, this leaves me calculating things like if: level of importance of each event ÷ levels of possible flatness/dirt + traveling out of town + trying to avoid hair-washing while out of town > the fact that Nina’s showerhead is giant and superstrength and could provide a cleanliness level that might add one more day at the end.
Obsessive much?

5 comments:

Elizabeth Crane said...

Oh, I feel so much less alone now - praise the power of the blog!

Anonymous said...

Your process and planning fascinate me, especially since the first time I ever considered NOT washing my hair every day was when I dyed it red using a semi-permanent dye. It took me awhile, but I did finally get used to the every-other-day washing system, just like I got used to rewearing clothes during extended periods of travel.... What's your opinion on rewearing items of clothing? For example, how many rewears can a pair of jeans have before they need to be washed?

Anonymous said...

Man, your post makes me excited for the day if/when my hair grows back.

Currently, my hair time-intensiveness is spent trying to cover the bald spots. And I'm female.

Stress sucks.

Anonymous said...

i'm a twice a week girl, myself. usually by the time a show opens, i've figured out how many days prior to friday i need to wash my hair in order to have the appropriate "do" thru saturday night. i could probably get away with washing three times per week, but i'd rather be greasy than fluffy any day. i just keep reminding myself that i'm saving so much money on "product" i would buy in order to make my hair look and feel unwashed.

all i'm really trying to say is that it's comforting to know i'm not the only one who constantly negotiates the balance of hygeine v. sex appeal.

Elizabeth Crane said...

This is so fantastic, a little conversation going on on my very own blog!
I wash my jeans every couple of weeks, but I have recently heard that it's a new style never to wash them at all. I could get with that but they do get a little stretched out after a while.
I don't plan meals around my TV schedule, but my TV schedule is a whole other post. TK.