new thread
Hello Everyone,
My name is Mac. I am new to this board and am seeking advice. I am in my late 30s and have been waiting to grow my hair out ever since I was 18, but every time I do, I get about a year into the process and snap one day, getting it cut short, real short. I am a public high school teacher and am expected to look professional at work. While having long hair is acceptable at my place of employment, looking terrible for three years until it grows out is not. So, I have come to the experts. It is my hope that all of your combined knowledge might give me the information to make it this time.
As of right now, I had all my hair cut one inch all over last June. This past August, I got the back neck line trimmed up short, but have not had a hair cut since. Before reading more, take a look at the pic I posted with this letter.
My problem with my hair is that it always, I mean ALWAYS looks like crap. Right after I wash it, it is super “poofy” as one of my students described it. To correct some of this, put a very small dab of gel in my hair after it is towel dried and brush it all straight back. Around the ears, I spray some hairspray and brush it back, letting it dry sort of plastered to my head. When my hair is dry, I brush it all out and go to bed with it dry. The next morning it is somewhat behaved, but looks like I never wash it. Forgoing the gel is an even worse disaster; I look like bozo the clown. What bothers me the most is the back of my hair. Unless I sleep on it, carefully not moving my head, it will just not behave. I get this “that girl” flip that looks greasy, dirty, and mostly unprofessional to the point my boss is telling me to get a haircut.
I need to figure out a way for my hair to look clean, be styled in a way that I donÂ’t look homeless, and still allow it to grow out and someday be long, like I have always wanted. Some people have told me to keep the back trimmed until my bangs catch up with them, others say let it go! I look like crap, feel like crap, and am losing my motivation to have long hair. There must be some trick, some product, something that can take this edge off at least enough so I can pass at work and not look homeless.
Any suggestions are welcomed,
Thank you,
Mac
I used mega hold gel to slick my hair straight back during the entire awkward stage. It kept it looking surprisingly neat and it appeared shorter than it really was.
I got the back and sides cut for a while to allow the top and particularly the front to catch up.
Do this for 20-24 months and you should have a length where all your hair reaches a ponytail tie. You've arrived and you're out of the awkward stage.
First off, I think you need to work on correcting the reason your hair looks so poofy after washing, that being it's probably too dry. Do you use a conditioner afterwards? If not do so. Also try applying some essential oils. And instead of shampooing every day, just rinse, condition and lightly oil and leave the shampooing to just once or twice a week. (My own hair is at it's least manageable the day I shampoo it, but looks much better for the next few days until it gets enough sebum build up that it needs shampooing again.)
Once you get your hair in good shape you can decide if you want to grow it all out at once or to let the back get long first.
--Dale
Public high school teacher, eh??? Me too, though a tad older than you. I have hair to my mid-back, as currently do two other members of our faculty. We also have a male assist principal with a ponytail.
However, we all (in my opinion) are very well groomed....and perhaps better than our short haired male colleagues.
You sound a bit skiddish, because you have not just let go and get it long enough to enjoy styling, etc. The gel is a good idea, but maybe you need to use a serum instead, which tends to make it more natural and attractive. Apply when it's damp from the shower, comb and leave it alone, man.
I'll be that when you find it long enough for a short ponytail, you will see how very "professional" you will appear. But, you MUST keep the back neat and trimmed with a razor trim...no scraggly hairs on the neck like the homeless living under the overpass, ok.
Just do it!
PS - Our former male superintendent of schools had longish hair too...and the public loved that guy! Be brave!!
Now THIS is truly a problem of the greatest problematic problems (made even a bigger problem) and compounded by the fact that the edge needs to be taken-off the subject of this problem so as to render it a forever non-problematic problem in a minor degree of crapless irritation so as to let the subject be immune to the REAL Problem! Hence, and there-after, once addressed and solved, the air will be cleared and no problem will indeed exist to the vastness of it all. (And also no more crapola.)
Here is what I would do. (And "did" do when growing my hair out very long.)
1. No cuts or trims and just let the hair grow on its own.
2. Didn't keep looking in the mirror and or wondering what other people might think of how it looked.
3. Enjoyed the Awkward Stage and accepted my hair as it grew out "as is" and never wished it to do other than it was able to do.
4. Presto............a happy trip into "Long Hair Land! :-)
Not really all that hard.
Best not to be all uptight about this. If one really wants to have long hair, they will find any excuse to have it.
Best of luck to you this time around.
Justin~
Justin that really is a beautiful answer, I must say. It really moved me. ;p
But Justin's first paragraph was packed full of almonds, cashews, pistachios, and pine nuts -- in other words, he sounded nuttier than a fruitcake!!!!
I do agree, however, that his comments after that were hands-down AWESOME (I especially liked his suggestions to not care or worry about what anyone else is thinking, and to not be so uptight about hair)...
When Justin speaks like a regular Earthling, his replies are First Class! But sometimes he sounds like he's been "communicating" with too many UFO sightings from another galaxy, orbiting around and around in space until finally re-entering Earth's atmosphere, but only to join the sinking ship Titanic...
Come back to terra firma, Justin! I miss the old you!!
- Ken
Hey Ken! :-)
Please don't worry, I am still right here on the planet. But of the old me? Yikes..........just amazing at this age the changes (not always for the good) that can happen with health. One minute at deaths door in a hospital, and 2 months later doing a gym workout in addition to running both dogs ragged. So, now I lighten up and suddenly see the world in a different light than ever before. This is a very short time we all have to live, and far too short to worry about such petty things as society people as a whole do that take to their hearts as to what is "important." Just unbelievable to me that in this day and age with the troubles going on in the world and so many fellow human beings starving to death that these people actually get all bent out of shape just because some guy decides he would like to have long hair. Absurd! Where are the correct priorities? What ever happened to "common sense?"
Life is such a constant state of change, and I have noticed that it changes faster and faster the older I get. Suddenly one begins to see such beauty all around them that has always been there, and yet unseen previously. (It may take a very narrow escape with death itself for this to be revealed, but looking at it as a positive experience, it opens ones eyes to the beauty of earth and nature unlike appreciated ever before.)
Everything my parents told me when I was younger has come true. One simply has to live long enough to gain this knowledge, for it is not to be found in any textbook, at least that I am aware of.
Of course, just about everyone has always known me to be a bit of a nut case, Fruitcake, downright crazy, or as an excentric composer linked to the past who was lucky enough in his lifetime to have landed 197 musical works published. (Some pieces to this day being performed mostly in Europe.)
And of course I have never been "normal" which I am well aware of and very thankful for. (Whew.) OMG........I wouldn't want to be "normal." Much too boring to try to keep up with everyone else to gain approval which will never happen. Much better just to be who you are and the heck with looking for the child within and spending thousands to some shrink to find it, when in fact if people would only stop long enough and listen to absolute silence, in that very state they may very well discover that the "child within" themself has been allowed to be smothered or bred-out of them by the society clone people of today. Very sad that this has happened.
Well, enough of a Litany here Ken. Hope all has been well with you and that you are enjoying a beautiful Fall Season down there in SF.
Take care-
Justin~
(The "OLD" Justin and getting older.) LOL :-)
Yes, I have visited "death's door" myself (found myself in a hospital bed in '03) -- and yes, it definitely does change your perspective on things, especially re. what are real priorities worth pursuing, and what are not!!
Yes indeed! And all the more reason to give uptight society the symbolic middle finger by growing your hair long!!!
Ain't that the truth!!
So that explains it... Yep, I sometimes forget that you're a musician. Pretty much every musician I've ever met are hands-down artistic geniuses; but they're also FRUITCAKES (lol)!!
Well, no worries in that department, Justin: you have indeed succeeded in NOT turning out to be "normal" (LOL) (And I can just hear some MLHH reader muttering to themselves, "and it takes one to know one! - LOL)....
Yes, it's gorgeous fall weather right now down here -- "Indian Summer", as they say. And w/ the SF Giants having just won the World Series, life couldn't be any finer in the city by the Bay!!
- Ken
I re read it, and, couldn't quite follow all of it, but felt in an individually poetic way, he was just saying, do not become overly concerned. I mostly liked the second half of the post. I pretty much see what you're saying though ken. ;p No offence to anyone.
Hi Mac,
I very much enjoyed reading your introduction post here, and have to say, it made me laugh quite a bit -- but the reason it made me laugh so much was that I thoroughly understand where you're coming from (because I had a lot of the very same worries myself, back when I first started growing my own hair out, which was also when I was in my late 30s -- my first ever full-on ponytail being just in time for my 40th birthday!)!!
Fear not! In my opinion, there are 3 main categories of "Secrets for Success" that you'll need to learn in order to become a genuinely happy and well-adjusted longhair in your future. They are as follows: 1) Learning as much as possible about hair in general, and specifically, YOUR hair; 2) Learning by "trial & error" which practical advise works best for you (and learning which advise from others does NOT work at all for you), and; 3) Learning how to make the attitude adjustments necessary IN YOUR THINKING in order to let go of whatever is mentally and emotionally holding you back from achieving the long hair of your dreams.
Sounds easy enough, right? Well, sometimes it's NOT, unfortunately... Category #1 and #2 are both actually not too bad, though -- and a lot of that stuff you can easily learn by just coming here a lot and reading the board regularly. Also, visit our Links section, and check out some of the great articles that are already very well written (Bill Choisser's, "On Being A Longhair" being my personal favorite). And then there is the Archives section... a ton of great stuff to read!!!
The hardest obstacle to overcome for many first-time growers (myself included), by far, might be the issue of re-learning how to mentally and emotionally view ourselves when first growing one's hair long. We look in the mirror every day of our lives, in most cases. The hard part comes whenever we decide to physically change that outward image staring back at us; yet we mentally and emotionally still play the same old broken record of whatever we were taught or subconsciously learned from others around us (including people near and dear to us who have long held VERY negative views of of long hair on men being "taboo"...
The good news is: growing one's hair out is NOT an overnight accomplishment -- which gives you some much-needed time to develop the patience and perseverance needed in order to successfully make it through the infamous "awkward stages" (while at the same time, getting used to seeing that new & different-looking hairier face staring back at you in the mirror!
We've all been through it. Some of us here may have first grown our hair out when we were young and had few worries; but even those of us that started growing when we were a bit older and had too many anti-longhair "broken records" playing in our heads have succeeded at crossing over the bridge to Longhair Nirvana.
It's kind of like taking a cross-country road trip: you just start from wherever you're currently at, but then keep checking the road map for the right signs along the way. If you happen to live on the North American Atlantic Coast, for example, and have never been out West, and wish someday to dip your toes in the Pacific, you've got to start with crossing the Appalachian Mts., first... So, don't worry too much right now about what you'll look like a year from now -- that will come in due time. Just enjoy today (you have GREAT-looking hair, by the way!!), learning patience and perseverance (and also learning how to ignore any negative comments coming from those who will advise you to go back to your old short hair ways), and before you know it, you'll be able to feel the wind blow through your long locks as you stand before a new and exotic seashore -- and wonder why it took you so long to come such a great place!!
- Ken in San Francisco
Thanks everyone for the good advice! I am looking forward to this process. Rewiring my brain is going to be the hardest part. I'm off to learn more about hair!
Mac in Montana