Flapper's Folly

A recent conversation between the Puter Ho and myself made me wonder at the differences between men and women. Don't worry this is totally G-Rated. It concerned shampoo. I was reminiscing about hair care. You know, like when I was little there was Miss Breck (which, BTW, has been brought back ) and Tame cream rinse. At that time there weren't that many hair products available. I seem to recall Prell and VO5 and not much else.

From there I graduated to the original Herbal Essence, which provided an all natural, truly herbal, almost alfalfa like experience very different from the orgasmic one touted today. I also remember occasionally using Downey fabric softener to detangle my hair which by then was quite long.

For several years, scissors never came near my head, except for times I might sit in front of the tv with a pair, twisting strands around my fingers and clipping those pesty split ends. Then came "wings." A salon visit, or actually what we called the beauty shop, was required to obtain those great Farrah locks. It was a truly a revolutionary time in haircare. Blowdryers and hot rollers and curling irons were all suddenly "must haves."

At that stage, only Redken Amino Pon, a sweet bubble gum pink concoction bought at the _salon_ touched my hair. It was PH balanced and I remember that until your hair reached a certain acidity, it would not lather. You could never use any other shampoo or Amino Pon would tell on you. It was a great time. I graduated from my mother's "Beauty Operator" to Mr Tom's Cutters. Now this was the ultimate in cool. Mr Toms was in the mall, a two story place, all glass, open to the rest of the mall. Not only could you pay way too much for a haircut, you could be seen while doing it. Anyone from Lubbock might remember the place. There is still one on 50th, but I believe the mall location has been closed for years.

I could go on and on. There were the Suave years when I didn't have much money and rarely had my hair cut professionally. There was a time I had regular haircuts and bought huge amounts of Sebastion products from the salon just wanting my hair to smell the way it did when I left the salon. Strangely, it never did. There have been years of permanents, both salon and home, that left my hair thirsting for whatever deep conditioning I could find. Actually I would still have the long, permed, wash and shake thing, but I realized a few years ago that it really was dated. These days it seems you need to be sixteen or named Sissy and drive a truck to pull that stuff off.

For a while now I've had a pretty basic pageboy. It's simple, doesn't require a lot of styling or products, and I stick with mostly Aussie products. I've left out a lot here. The introduction and history of mousse and all the highlights over the years. All the breakthroughs in hair technology and scents. The point of this entry is that after about ten minutes of regaling my husband with my haircare product history, I noticed he had this derisive smirk on his face. He thought it was a hoot. He couldn't imagine that _anyone_ kept track, especially a year by year account, of shampoos used. That's when it hit me. I had tried to have a female conversation with a male. I honestly think that most women can remember what shampoos they have used over the years. I've had these conversations with other women!

My conclusion is that if you are male, your eyes glazed over and you clicked away several paragraphs back. If you are female, you knew exactly what I was talking about.