Wigs and Hair

Ever since childhood I have been fascinated by wigs. My first wig was homemade. It consisted of long strands of green wool, crudely held together by a rubber hand and gripped onto my head. I was about nine years old at the time, the late sixties, and forced by my parents to have short hair so that I wouldn't be distracted from my schoolwork. It seems barely credible to me today that they should give that as a reason to have short hair; short hair which I detested.

About a year later, one of my aunts gave me her pony tail attachment. It was dark brown, a good bit darker than my own mid-brown hair, but I didn't mind in the least. The ponytail was gripped securely onto my head. My school beret, turned inside out so as not to reveal the school badge, was strategically placed to hide the rather clumsy join.

Out I went, swishing my ponytail. I was so involved in being a girl with a ponytail that I almost forgot that I was wearing my older brother's coat, which he'd outgrown, the buttons fastening the wrong way.

Where were the wig shops then? I didn't know of any, even in my teens and living in a big city. By then I had grown my hair and there were plenty of other things by then to distract me from my schoolwork, real distractions this time, long hair on me, being the least of their worries. It was long hair on boys that began to worry them greatly. I loved long hair on boys and men. Led Zeppelin, Free, Yes, The Faces, The Small Faces and The Herd - all long-haired and to my mind, brilliant.

There aren't many young men today who have long hair, but there will be again, some time. It's just fashion. It was The Beatles who introduced long hair for men, in the early sixties, causing outrage among the conventional. Looking back it seems ridiculous that The Beatles' hair was classed as long. It just wasn't army short.

I particularly like, on women, long, thick, straight hair, especially dark hair, but I like all colours, apart from some really yellowy blonde hair. I've had lots of different coloured hair, red perhaps for the majority of the time, though currently it's dark brown, I think.

I wish my hair was straighter, though people say to me how lucky I am to have a wave in my hair and how much money they have spent just to get their hair to curl or wave a little. But as numerous people have told me, and as I have told numerous people, you don't want what you've got.  If only there had been hair straighteners when I was younger! It would have saved me loads of time and money spent on sellotape and would have saved me from pain too, removing the sellotape from facial skin.

For a while now I have been looking on the internet at wigs. If only I could have done that in my teens! There are some sensational wigs: full wigs, three quarter wigs, half wigs, hair pieces and extensions. In addition there are clip on fringes in real or artificial hair, just like the wigs, and I have bought three of these. On YouTube there are plenty of instructional videos on fixing them. The prices for all wigs and hair pieces are very reasonable, but I think I prefer the artificial hair as I don't want to think about some poor woman somewhere, having to give her hair away to feed her family.

Tonight I think I will order the three quarter wig that I have had my eye on. But will I be brave enough to wear it, as I was brave enough to wear the pony tail under a beret when I was a child?