Playing with hair

I'm kind of chuckling over the response (here and on ravelry) to the updo. That was literally less than two and a half minutes of twisting my hair to make that. (Hm. Maybe I need to wear my hair up more often).

(In fact, one person on Rav commented that "topknots are totally in right now." Who knew? Not me, apparently.)

I'm wearing my hair up again - they tend to turn off the a/c on weekends here - but I did something less idiosyncratic this time - I just gathered up a "high" ponytail (normally I wear the ponytail low, at the nape of my neck) and wrapped the "tail" around the ponytail holder and, in the absence of any hairpins, stuck a pencil in there to hold it.

I have sort of coarse, crimpy (it's wavy, and the last time I wore it short, it was extremely curly) hair, so it tends to stay more or less put once you do something with it. Actually, as often as I've envied the people with fine, straight hair, I think that kind of hair would be more prone to fall out of these sort of updos (at least, not without a ton of styling product. And meh, styling product is more trouble than I want to go to). It's kind of like rayon yarn versus wool yarn: rayon is slippy and slidy and you have to use grabby needles to keep the stitches from falling off, but with a good old "natural" wool, the stitches will grab and hang on, even if you're knitting with aluminum needles.

Interesting. My hair is more like sheep's wool than some people's hair, I guess. (Well, chemically speaking, everyone's hair is kind of like sheep's wool; they are both keratin fibers)

I do need to get some pins and toys though (and thanks for the link, Lydia, I will have to consider getting one of those "toys") and mess around a little more with putting my hair up in various ways. Because we still have perhaps 3 months of summer left....

I also do want to practice for when my hair goes totally white (or grey, but I'm thinking it will go white, based on what happened to my grandmothers, and the fact that the few "age bleached" hairs that have shown up on my head have been white). Because a lot of people still think it's strange for a more "mature" woman to wear a long ponytail, and because I once saw an older woman with long, long grey hair who had it done up in an awesome bun.

(And no. I am not thinking of cutting it. Because (a) the last time I had short-but-not-boycut-short hair, it was poodle curly, which was a really bad look for me and (b) my long hair is one of the few things about my appearance that I'm actually kind of proud of. and (c) I don't want a short boycut ever again. It worked OK when I was swimming and needed hair that would dry fast, but it's just too masculine looking for me now. Some women look good with that kind of cut but I don't think that I do.)

(Actually, my hair may never totally turn. My mother still has salt-and-pepper hair, and my maternal grandmother, even into her 90s, still had some dark brown hair. And one of my aunts - who made it to 90 - kept her strawberry blonde color (without benefit of dye) until the end of her life)