Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

I’m obsessed with this movie:

Have you seen it?  Go buy it or find it on Netflix or something.  Or invite me over to watch it with you because I want to watch it again and again.

It’s the story of black hair and the lengths (ha, pun) women go to to get long luscious Beyonce hair.  Relaxing, extensions, weaves, they’re all in there.  It was a total revelation and I loved how black girls spilled their hair secrets that I’ve been wondering about my whole life.  I watched it again last week with my fabulous and lovely hair dresser friend Melissa. She was as mystified as I was and I thought, as a hair dresser, she would be privy to this sort of information.  Apparently only black hair dressers know their secrets?  Why is that?

What is UP with Beyonce’s blowing in the wind hair?  How did she get it that long and silky looking using relaxer which I know just fries your hair?  Is everybody related to Native Americans?  How does Michele Obama get her hair to look perfect?  Who is wearing fake hair?  What is fake hair?  How much does this all cost?  And most importantly, HOW DO I GET IN ON IT??

Weave, weave.

A weave means a lot of different things.  These, I’d guess, are full pieces that are sewn onto the head after the real hair is french braided down to the scalp.  It’s a fascinating process and one that takes hours, has to be redone every 6 weeks, looks like it hurt, and costs a fortune.  I want to try it!  But it sounds itchy.

Braided, netted, extensions to be sewn on.  These are clipped to the hair.

Now everywhere I go I’m constantly evaluating black girl’s hair and analyzing how they got it to look so amazing.  It’s like art.  They can change their hair dramatically overnight. 

Jealous.

Wigs are definitely not part of white girl culture, unless the wearer is undergoing some sort of chemotherapy, in some theatrical show, or maybe a prostitute.  If you see a white girl wearing a wig A) you notice and B) you try to determine if she is sick.  I’ve always been tempted by wigs but never given them a go.

Pre-wig, wearing wig cap and looking kinda scary.

No time like the present!

If you’re going to buy a wig, I say, go big or go home. Japanese girls wear wigs all the time for cosplay -- costume play dressup -- as seen with Gwen Stefani’s xenophilic (but perhaps condescending) Harajuku girls phase.  I didn’t want a natural looking wig.  I wanted an anime-style wig.  Not quite Lady Gaga, but something fantastic.

 

Cosplay girl, Girls in cosplay in the Tokyo Harajuku neighborhood. Jude in the stroller.

After being jealous of this blogger for months, I found some fabulous wigs for sale from China and went for it.

My wig’s debut was a regular Saturday.  My kids and I were headed to the Little Farm in Berkeley and then to the mall for some shopping.  Just me and them, probably not seeing anyone I knew.  Perfect time to experiment with my new freaky wig.  I was feeling brave and ready for adventure.

My mom helped me put on my piece, though she objected and didn’t get why I was wearing a pink wig.  I didn’t really know either.  I just felt like it, okay?

We got it on, I turned to her and she adjusted it and said, “Looks perfect.  You look like a prostitute.  Don’t be surprised if you get propositioned.  Have a good day!”  Thanks mom!

 

At the Little Farm

At the Little Farm I quickly realized that being normal and with my kids totally validated me despite the weird hair.  I had a posse.  My kids didn’t think I was weird, they liked it!  It was like being a mermaid all day, or a Disney princess!  Stranger kids wandered up to me in interest.  I liked it!

Then we went to the mall.  We’re always a bit of a spectacle because I load all three kids onto one stroller.  This time I was pushing it wearing my weird wig.  Teenagers stopped me to talk about the wig.  Old people smiled at me.  It was strange being so conspicuous, but very amusing.  It made a boring and stressful walk through the mall a total adventure.

And then we ran into Carol!  Mimi’s preschool teacher (hi Carol!) was shopping with her mom and, as she passed me, was nudging her mom to look at the girl with the freaky hair.  Then when she recognized Mimi and Jude she said incredulously, “Lenore?!”  I loved that she knows me well enough to be simply amused.  It was so fun running into someone we knew and we laughed a lot.  It was the best part of the day.

Until that night.  It happened that I was meeting Some Guy, his boys, and our friends for dinner.  In Oakland.  At an Ethiopian restaurant where we are often the only white people there.  I don’t know why I felt more uncomfortable in that restaurant, and subsequently at Oak Street in Emeryville, than I had in less ethnically diverse areas.  For some reason a white girl wearing a wig in the majority white suburbs is different than a white girl wearing a wig around more black people.  People literally pointed and obviously nudged each other.

It was very interesting.  But then I thought to myself, why is it weird for me to wear a wig and not weird that the girl standing next to you is wearing fake hair?  What’s the difference?  Do you think her wig is less noticeable?  Cause I notice.  I know the fake hair secrets now. 

I’m slowly debuting my pink wig with my friends.  Today I wore it to the laundromat and the dentist.  It turned mundane activities into adventures, and all because of a mass of synthetic pink hair.

I’m totally buying more.

  

Laundromat photoshoot.