Hair

On Saturday I was in my friend Erica's wedding. It was beautiful and lovely and a bunch more adjectives I can't quite think of, and there weren't any huge screw-ups. For the wedding she wanted all of her bridesmaids to have their hair put up, so when I plunked down in the salon chair and the woman asked me what I was "envisioning," I said simply, "Erica wants it up."

"Up in curls? Up in waves? Up with straight bits coming down?"

"Erica said up," I said stubbornly.

"What about the back?" the woman asked. "Would you like some bits coming down?"

"Erica said up," I said, not caring if I was making her job tougher, and not caring about the result either.

"What about the front?" she asked me. "Would you like some face-framing strands?"

I pondered. "Erica said that's okay," I replied.

So she got to work, and an hour later it was up. Up with liberal use of a curling iron, massive amounts of spray, a sprinkling of glitter glued on, and fifty-nine - count 'em fifty-nine - bobby pins. My head ached by the end of the night, and my scalp was throbbing from where my hair had been pulled and pins had been scraped across. My hair is perfectly straight, very fine, and, in her words, "slippery" - very, very smooth. It took a lot to get it to stay up all night.

This has motivated me to grow out my hair. Later on when Mike asked if I would keep it the length I had grown it out for the wedding instead of cutting it back into its usual bob I said I would. I'd like my hair up at my wedding, but not up like that.

Unfortunately, this leaves me with a year of watching my hair get progressively longer. I have no idea about hair. That's why I bobbed it in the first place. I decided that my vivid color would make up for a simple haircut, and just washed and blow-dried it daily. I have no idea how to style hair.

Last night I went to Barnes & Noble to search for a hair manual. I want a real basic one, one with arrows showing where your hands should go, and pictures not only of the products you should be using but the amounts to use as well. I got a hair magazine as well as a bridal magazine (now that I know what I don't want my hair to be like, I need to figure out how I do want it), but no matter how hard I searched I couldn't find any books on how to do hair.

So if anyone knows of any books or websites that could help me out, I'd be appreciative. Otherwise I'll just wind up keeping my hair in a fifty-nine pin ponytail for the next twelve months.