My mom used to do this. You know. Put tape in her hair.
"But, WHY?" you may reasonably ask.
It was her main hairstyling method, and I'm beginning to think there might be something to it.
Let me explain.
My mom sported a short hairstyle from the time she hit her mid-30's until the last day of her life. We used to call it a pixie. It was parted pretty much in the middle, was short all the way around, and there were bangs. I remember thinking of it as a "boy's haircut" when I was a kid. To be fair, though, it was more feminine than that. Except for the times when she got a bit carried away with the scissors. Like I got a bit carried away with the eyebrow tweezers just a few minutes ago (but, never mind about that).
Anyway, my mom would wash her short pixie-style hair, comb it into the desired shape, and then apply scotch tape all over her head to hold it in place while it dried. She would place a long piece of tape across the bangs, to hold them flat to her forehead. She would apply pieces of tape on either side of the part. She would also put several pieces of tape of varying lengths all along the back and sides of her head. And she would leave all this tape in place for several hours, until her hair was good and dry. Finally, she would peel off the tape and comb her hair -- ready for the day, at last (or at least the afternoon).
When I was growing up, I found all this to be unnerving. It all took SO long and looked (in my mind) ridiculous. My mom was very pretty, and to see her walking around with all this tape in her hair every morning annoyed me. (Yes. Daughters -- especially adolescent daughters -- can be quite exasperating and judgmental.) "Why," I would think to myself, "doesn't she just blow-dry her hair?" -- Or -- "Would it really look that bad if she let it air dry without the damn tape?" -- Or -- "She should just let it get longer, so it wouldn't stick out at odd angles if it dried without the tape." I would have this little dialogue with myself at least several times a month, exasperating and judgmental adolescent daughter that I was. I did complain about it to her every once-in-a-while, but that wasn't very well received, as I recall. So -- mostly -- I just talked to myself about it, wondering why my mother had to do this weird thing.
Well...
Now, I'm thinking it wasn't such a bad idea. I'm thinking of even taking up this idea myself.
Why?
Because I have rather thick, wavy hair and -- depending on the weather -- it sometimes dries, as my daughter Bridget describes it, "looking like a triangle sticking out of" my head. Why couldn't I just blow-dry it? Because my hair tends to be rather dry, and blow-drying it causes many split ends. It also ends up looking funny, because I really have no talent with a blow-dryer. I could use moose, but that doesn't feel good to me. Bridget tells me that I should just let it air dry into curls and then not comb it -- the combing it is what makes it stick out like a big, fluffy triangle -- but, that doesn't feel good to me, either. I like the feeling of the air circulating through my hair. I like to feel it move. Yes, this is all rather odd, but that's the way it is.
A few days ago, though, I remembered about the scotch tape. I could probably employ the scotch tape so that my hair wouldn't turn into a triangle. Perhaps, if I let it dry with the tape on, it would be tame enough so that, when I combed it, it would stay reasonably un-triangle-like. I don't know. But, I'm tempted to try it.
I wonder what my kids would say. ;-)
*******
I just realized that I used the wrong form of "moose" up there, but it's making me laugh so hard that I'm leaving it. Ha!
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