My 80s Hair Was Bigger Than Your 80s Hair- and I Can Prove It!

Over the holidays I exchanged some FB messages with my best friends from high school.  Everything was all fun and games until they had to start posting photos from back in the day.  We graduated in 1989.  If you were not around or do not remember that time, stop reading right now and Google photos from the late 80s, early 90s.  What do you notice about the girls?  Their hair!  What were we thinking, you ask?  I have absolutely no idea.  I suspect that after the first three cans of Aqua Net we were unable to do very much deep thinking at all.  My friends and I all laughed at the photos, each commenting that she was sure that she was the one who looked the silliest.  Well I happen to have some pretty convincing evidence that I, in fact, had the most ridiculous 80s hair of us all.

As some of the 80s trends have come back around, I have seen a couple of pretty funny videos of girls re-enacting the way 80s girls did their hair and makeup.  One of my friends and I even chuckled over one that was fairly accurate.  But the real truth is that 80s hair and makeup was not a laughing matter.  It was a real investment of time and money.  First, you had to wash your hair every morning because when you woke up you looked like a deranged sasquatch with the mange.  (If you had gotten hot during the night, your head might even be stuck to your pillow.  Damp hair product can act as an adhesive agent.)  Then came the first round of product application.  I preferred a volumizing mousse for the top and a scrunching spray for the sides and back.  An important note about 80s hair products- quantity over quality.  The cheaper the product, the better the hold.  I found that the best products could be found at grocery stores.  Gas station hair spray would probably have been even better, but gas stations back then did not have all the variety that they do now.  Once the damp hair was thoroughly doused with product, it was time to blow dry it.  You needed a special blow dryer that had a special name that I can’t remember because I am old.  It was round and did not really blow out air very hard.  This allowed you to scrunch your hair as it dried.  I always added more scrunching spray as I scrunched, because I am just extra like that.  When it was dry, I liked to give my whole head a good overall spray of Aqua-net.  Then, I would curl the top with my curling iron.  The Aqua-net coating ensured that the hair stuck really nicely to the curling iron and no hairs got loose from the fiery heat.  Steam came out, too.  That way I knew it was working.  I carefully curled the top of my head. The back and sides were  scrunched, remember?  When all of the stiff curls were formed, I took my special teasing comb and took the pick end and picked out the crunchy curls.  This comb was an 80s essential.  One end was a comb-like tool with special teasing capabilities and the other end was a pick.  Mine had a nice glaze of scrunching spray and Aqua-net on it that made it good and sticky.  It also had a little bit of suntan Cover Girl makeup mixed in.  After a good picking through, I sprayed and sprayed with Aqua-net until it had a good sheen and a firm texture.  But I was not finished.  I had to do the sides.  A true 80s girl not only had mile high bangs, she also had wings of hair that fanned her face on either side, making it necessary for her to go through some doorways sideways.  Now I am about to reveal the secret about how to achieve the best wings.  Pull the hair back to the desired distance away from the face, spray thoroughly with Aqua-net, and aim your regular hair dryer on the Aqua-net until it dries.  REPEAT.  Do the other side.  You will note that I said regular hair dryer.  Yes, you also needed a regular blow dryer for the wings.  Now, to be on the safe side, spray your entire head with a good coating of Aqua-net.  How long did this process take?  At least an hour.  At least.  And that did not include the 80s makeup that also had to be done.

Now that you have had your tutorial, you are probably wondering how it is that I know my hair was the biggest and what evidence I have to prove it.  Well, I am a recovering perfectionist.  Recovering means that I no longer strive for 100% perfection.  I can now accept a high 97% and not have a melt down.  Just kidding, just kidding.  Pretty much.  No, I am kidding.  (For real this time, Dr. K.)  But back in the 80s, the perfection force ran strong through me.  So when big hair became all the rage, I was ALL IN.

First, when you look at some photos of 80s girls you will notice that they mainly focused on the bangs and wings and ignored the back.  Not me!  My hair was big all the way around.  I scrunched the whole back side.  How did I get it all to be so big?  One thing I had going for me was that I had thick hair.  Another thing that I made happen was that I highlighted it and got perms.  Treated hair worked better for big hair.  I think the highlighting worked best when you pulled on what looked like a swimmer’s cap and then pulled strands of hair through with a knitting needle.  Then you painted bleach on with a paintbrush and covered your head with a Ziploc bag and read a Tiger Beat magazine while your hair slowly died on your head.  On the months when you didn’t do that, you got a perm.  This really helped with the scrunching process.  I liked to get a really tight perm, so I could pick it out really big.  In looking back, these procedures would probably best have been done in a beauty parlor attached to someone’s house in what had once been a garage.  However, I was fancy.  I had my hair done at a Regis in the mall.

The next two examples are my real proof that my hair was the biggest.  To be perfectly honest, they are both hilarious and mortifying.

Toward the end on the big hair era, my family went on a couple of vacations.  The first was to Disney World and Epcot.  My mom, sister, and I were in one of the parks inside of some building waiting in a long line.  I cannot remember why.  We were among people from all over the world.  Right next to us was a group of people from Japan.  These people had traveled across an ocean to a different continent to see the sights.  I noticed that they were speaking to each other and pointing to me.  After a few minutes, one of the ladies asked if she could take my picture.  Then she asked how I got my hair so big.  Apparently, big hair was not a phenomenon that had made its way to Japan.  My photo became one of her American souvenirs.  The following year, we went to the San Diego Zoo.  When we got the the monkey section, as soon as I stood in front of one of the monkey cages, a certain monkey started to shriek and point at me and run all over his enclosure.  At first, I thought it was just a coincidence, so I walked away.  The monkey became calm.  I walked back and he started shrieking again!  Everyone around started staring at me.  It was awful.  Needless to say, this was just about the time that my hair started to work its way down a little closer to my head!

The next example came long after my big hair days.  My mom, sister, and I had found some old video tapes from our video camera and decided to play them.  When we put the first one it, we thought we might have left the camera under a blanket or something.  All you could see was a light brown color.  We could hear people talking, but the screen was a solid color.  The weird thing was, there did seem to be some movement of the camera.  We kept watching for what felt like a few minutes.  Finally light broke through and we saw… the side of my face.  The camera had been recording the back of my huge expanse of hair!  My sister almost ruptured an organ laughing so hard.

So there’s my proof.  My 80s hair was big, and time consuming, and expensive, and ridiculous.  Do I regret it?  Nope.  It’s all part of my story.  I wouldn’t do my hair that way again, but it was a lesson learned.  I have lots of laughs about it now.  And now you are dying for a picture.  Well I am not posting one this week.  If I had posted a picture, you would have spent all of your time looking at that and would have just skimmed past all my words.  I will post one next week.  Until then, just use your imagination!