Unruly hair, unruly me
It was a beautiful northern California day when my friend Laurie and I got together for a girls’ afternoon out. We visited Ikea in Emeryville, a first for me but Laurie is a fan and she needed some closets for her new house. After a way too long store visit – think about going through all those aisles to find the right shelves, pay and walk the boxes to the car - we decided it was time to start the fun and so we drove to Sausalito. Imagining a plate of delicious oysters washed down with a nice glass of Rose while looking at the ocean under the bluest sky on earth made us smile.
As we drove under the beautiful sun feeling like Thelma and Louise, Laurie started talking about the benefits of being 47 years old. Among other perks, she appreciated her newly found ability to speak her mind freely – even in the corporate environment, she works in. Case in point- she was “reprimanded’ by HR for not the following script during a company event. Her response “if you want someone to follow the script, hire a robot!”. Between laughs, we started comparing recent experiences and we realized that with age we have become unruly -- just like our hair!
Suddenly, we went from talking about our personal unruliness to talking about the saga of our aging hair:
Chapter 1 – Extreme Dryness
One day you notice you need to add a bit more conditioner so your hair will look and feel less dry. Then, you start trying all kinds of treatments and when you realize that these measures are not going to cut it, you just start washing your hair less often. Well, although less washing helps with dryness, especially at the ends, the roots become oily after just a couple of days. So, what do you do? Resort to dry shampoo. The downside: your scalp starts to itch and even begin to flake.
Chapter 2 – Hair Thinning
One day you realize that your ponytail has three-quarters of the thickness it used to have. Oh no! What’s happening? Well, your hair is thinning. You spend more time and money on good haircuts than ever before. You also spend a lot of time reading and consulting about the causes, but find very few solutions.
Chapter 3 – Uncontrollable Flyaways (plus all of the above)
Your hair acts crazy! As if it needs Valium to calm down.
At this point, you realize one must not be alone. For sure this is happening to other women. You pick up the phone and call a friend. You visit your dermatologist and consult your stylist. And you even reach out to your sciency friend. You talk to her about inventing a solution for all those women over 40 out there who are going through the same hair saga. Your friend gets excited- shall we do this? Let’s discuss it over oysters and Rose.
Stay tuned - the hair revolution for us beautiful, unruly 40+ year-olds may be in the works!