Hair idols?

[veil]

I was pondering why some individuals choose to grow thier hair long, and by long...I mean past classic (or aspiring to). My thoughts brought me to childhood influences....and I thought about my own hair idols from a young age. Naturally Crystal Gail comes to mind if you are in your thirtys...so my question is...Who was your hair idol growing up, and why do you choose to grow your hair past the 'acceptable' length of the modern day?

[Marianne]

Rapunzel Well, perhaps not an idol as such, but it was one of my favourite stories and I remember the pictures showing her full length particularly well.

I never really made the conscious decision to have long hair. It's kind of like any other body part for me. I didn't decide to grow those, they are just there, and I wouldn't care for them to be removed.

[Countrymouse]

Good question. Honestly, I didn't have a long hair idol growing up. I'm in my 30's and grew up listening to country music so of course I saw Crystal Gayle's gorgeous long hair often, but that's not what made me want to keep mine long. I've cut it short a few times but always grew it back just becuase I missed it. I didn't feel like "me" without it. So my answer to why I want beyond classic length hair is .... me. Just becuase I like my hair long.

[RapunzelEnvy]

Growing up I liked short hair and so I loved Ashley Judd's short do.

But now that I'm interested in long hair I find that their aren't really any well known waist/classic haired idols to admire.

[Teacherbear]

Good question because <I'll probably get flogged for this> but I thought Crystal Gail's hair was just . . . I didn't like it. So I don't know who my "idol" was. I looooved the Long N Lovely shampoo commercials/print ads. I also remember having my hair cut for the first time when I was 4. Then I remember almost sitting on my hair when my Mom combed it out when I was in 1st or 2nd grade (I don't know if the math works out, but that's how I remember things).

Several years ago I was surprised at my hair nearing waist length (when my arm was at my waist behind my back) and wanted to see how much longer it would grow. I don't have great aspirations for mid-thigh or knee length.

I am a bit intrigued at it growing a littttttle bit longer (braid tassel being classic length).

Why do I grow it? because I like being different from the norm in a subtle way (I consider hair to be subtle) yet substantial way. It isn't just a whim. I also like the versatility. I can have very short hair (updos) or long (braids, ponys, and open).

[naomimcc]

Originally Posted by veil

Naturally Crystal Gail comes to mind if you are in your thirtys...

Hey! I'm not in my 30's (yet...damn close though! ) and I remember Crystal Gayle. She, in fact, was my first hair idol. My second would have to be my neighbour across the street who had waist length salt and pepper hair. She ended up cutting it super short, like old lady at the salon for her weekly set short and it looked terrible...I cried for her!!!

Currently though I have lots: just look on these boards!!!

[RapunzelEnvy]

*drift* Countrymouse, your hair is gorgeous. So shiny *end drift*

[SilkenTresses]

My grandmother and my sisters. Growing up my sisters always had long hair but not me and I always wanted it long. But this time it was my grandmother who passed away at 93 with long hair (not classic but it was long). I never knew anyone with hair below their tailbone til I came here. That's why I've never left!!!

[Countrymouse]

Originally Posted by RapunzelEnvy

*drift* Countrymouse, your hair is gorgeous. So shiny *end drift*

Aw, thanks, RapunzelEnvy.

[Mamid]

Finola Huges (Anna Devaine Scorpio Lavery from GH)
The blond who plays Felicia Jones Scorpio, also from GH.
Jane Seymore.

Unfortunately, all three of them have cut their hair! AUGH

[Meezer]

When I was a kid, I longed for Melissa Gilbert's braided tresses on "Little House on the Prairie". Unfortunately, painful, tangled brushing sessions left me begging my mother to chop of my curls when I was in the 2nd grade. I ended up with a she-mullet up until 7th grade when I decided to grow my hair longer for no particular reason.

As an adult, I've decided to grow my hair longer simply b/c it is easier for me... and my curls seem to enjoy being longer. I have coaxed my hair into short, trendy styles; super straight, sleek styles, and an assortment of mid-lengths only to realize that Laura Ingals knew what was best after all.

[Carolyn]

I always wanted long hair. But wasn't allowed to have it much below shoulders until 9th grade when my mom finally let me have control of it. I had a baby sitter, I think maybe in about 2nd grade who had a long braid. I remember it as thick and auburn and to her waist. Her name was Vienna and I just adored her. She was a gymnast at the Y. I can remember her doing an exhibition at halftime of a basketball game. It was tramoline and floor exercise. I can still see her jumping and flipping and spinning and that braid flying behind her. I remember the comments from the crowd about her hair. I wanted that too. High school and college was the late 60s - early 70s. Everyone had long hair. I remember the Long and Silky ads and wanting that hair. There was one girl with past waist length hair leaning on a fence. I would have given anything to be her. Later on I went thru lots of styles but nothing shorter than shoulder length. I'd get there and freak out about how short it was and start growing again. I don't have hair idols now other than you guys. after my dreadful Jennifer Anniston cut I decided I was going long again come hell or high water.

[Hairstorm]

Mostly Anne of Green Gables.

[heidi w.]

I love all the Medieval stories....

King Arthur's Court and Gwenevierre and her Ladies in Waiting
Tristan & Isolde
The Green Knight
Sir Gawain stories.....

and in all these stories, love the pictures where the women all had long hair, flowing gowns, and beauty that inspired men to be gentlemen and honor these women. (Naturally, of course, this is all romanticized by the present tense, but that doesn't bother me any!)

Then there's Fairy Tales: Rapunzel, The Twelve Princesses, Cinderella, Trolls, and a gazillion other possibilities.

Then there's the world of Shakespeare and his strong women, and the Court of Queen Elizabeth I: where hair was a sign of status (especially when decorated even if in a wig). Courtly life in general.

Then there's tons and tons of art, from Flemish to Renaissance, Egyptians, Greeks, the Venus de Wilhelmina (no, not long hair, but fertility is in part expressed through the hair--a rather old connection to the idea of hair, fertility and good health being intertwined).... and certainly all the Greek tales show a lot of beautiful long hair, Aphrodite, Diana the Huntress, and the list continues.

And of course, the story of Lady Godiva which only more recently did I learn the more "factual" elements of the story and why she rode through town naked except for being clothed in her hair.

And I am my mother's daughter and a product of the 60s. Indeed, one of my all time favorite lines in song:

"Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can.....
Then my hair's too short!"

And there's tons of poetry and other musical references to hair including the one of Shakespeare's sonnet #130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare."

Now that's a beautiful woman, and who wouldn't want to receive this poem from her beloved??

Then there's spooky stuff such as Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus....what a powerful image that red hair, eh? In an era of feminism before it took its grip. (Remember, she wanted to be the arrow that shot into the world, not the woman behind the man)

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr god, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

23-29 October 1962

And there's tons of other more lyrical and melodic poetry.....just tons to be inspiring. There's the eerie story of Faulkner's A Rose for Miss Emily when after her death, they find one steely gray hair on her pillowcase. She could not have her lover in life; so she took him in death.

And of course, who can forget the regret of Delila shoring Samson's hair, and Samson seemingly losing his power which he believed came through his hair only to have everything back in spades to create the downfall of a town...the simple explanation (don't want to go into a religious dialogue here since I am not qualified).

And comparatively speaking, there's the horrid imagery of the head of snakes, Medusa, when looking upon her face, one turned to stone! Another powerful image....

and our current society has volumes of dialogue and imagery surrounding hair. So, to anyone who thinks it's "just hair" -- it's identity; it places people in eras; it's historical; it has power and loss combined with it.....(many cultures practice shoring the hair as a symbol of the loss of a loved one)

Hair was everywhere in the world I grew up in, not the least being my Mother who had beautiful wavy, thick brown hair that she created into all kinds of postures and whom her beloved termed "silk."

[Rain]

My parents weren't big country music fans but I still remember seeing Crystal Gayle on television. I guess we didn't have many channels. All I remembered about her is the hair. When I found out she's a distant relative of mine, I decided to see if my hair will get that long.

've always loved fairy tales so of course Rapunzel...and probably the Brady girls to some extent since I grew up watching them. There were so many people on television and in my life with long hair and I wanted it badly! I don't remember specific inspiring heads of hair but I started school in the '70s and there were a lot of people with long hair back then.

As for why I keep it freakishly long now, I've never been "normal" and I don't intend to start now. I love long hair and always dreamed of having it but if I lived in a time and place where it was expected of me to have it, I'd want to cut it all off. I don't labor under any delusions that I'm so amazingly unique from every other person in the world and I have totally original ideas about everything but I like not having a trendy haircut that closely resembles everyone else's. It's not that I have a need to stand out so much as I'm going to stand out anyway so I may as well have the hair I want in the meanwhile.

ETA: Almost forgot one major influence. "Mojo Pin" by Jeff Buckley. It begins, "I still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal/they touch my skin and keep me whole."