A neighbour, who is a retired but a very active nurse, found me the other day combing my hair and said, “Cut it, cut it!”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s high maintenance. Do you know when I was working in Britain, they specifically asked me to go to a hospital and shampoo an Indian woman’s long hair? They said that the English nurses couldn’t cope! Also, patients can’t maintain long hair, you know-they have to get it cut.”
Actually, I think that short hair-whether chin-length or shoulder-length-demands high maintenance. You need to set it, blow-dry it, use curling tongs or whatever. And then, there’s the wind. When I wore my hair short for decades, the problem was always the wind. When windblown, my hair would look like nothing on earth because it is fine and lacks body.
My late father used to speak of a woman’s hair as her crowning glory, in the popular phrase. Also, many women spend a great deal of time choosing their clothes, putting on make-up and so forth. Why cannot they spend a little time taking care of longer hair, I wonder? I was also a hospital patient when I had long hair which had never been cut, and I did not get it cut then. It was later on that I succumbed to a brief spell of insanity and got my long hair cut off.
Only a few years ago, by happenstance, I found that I either did not have the time, or was too lazy, to walk a few blocks from where I lived to a hairdresser’s in order to get my hair trimmed.
Weeks extended into months, and my hair was finally shoulder-length. I shrugged and pinned it back, cocking a snook at the wind. Now, it is waist-length and will probably stay there, although originally it was so long that I could sit upon it.
Long hair can, indeed, have its drawbacks. By the same token, short hair-whatever its shade might be-can, indeed, look very attractive when it is properly cut and styled to suit the person. It is the total look that matters.
Personal choice and lifestyle dictate how long or short a woman's hair might be. Myself, I would never now go back to short hair. My father, as always, was right.
