I recently took a few moments to reflect on my childhood and found that my memories generally consist of (1) opening Christmas presents, and (2) falling off my bicycle. If I were ever in danger and my life flashed before my eyes, the audio portion would sound something like this: ‘Thank you’; ‘Ouch!’ ‘Thank you’; ‘Ouch!’ ‘Thank you’; ‘Ouch!’
Of course I have other childhood memories, one of which involves Dippity-Do – a product that proved that the hair-care industry had too much time on its hands. Dippity-Do was a thick gel (available in pink or blue) that you combed into your hair. After a few minutes this amazing, space-age polymer would harden your hairstyle into a shiny, bullet-proof helmet. A person could go out into hurricane Hugo, confident that even if their eyebrows blew off, the rest of their hair would remain as fixed in place as the Pyramids at Giza.
Dippity-Do made hair fascinating for a boy. I remember sitting in third grade, taking rigid locks of hair in my fingers and snapping them like strands of dry pasta.
When Dippity-Do fell out of fashion, I lost interest in hair. To me, hair is like having a big fingernail on the top of your head that needs to be trimmed every once in a while.
I don’t think I’m stepping out on a limb here when I say that men care less about their top fur than women. If you need proof, hunt down a school yearbook from the early 70s. Seen through the lens of time, it becomes obvious that the guys weren’t even trying. While the girls spent hours ironing their hair to make it perfectly straight, the most effort you could expect from a guy was to trim his sideburns just before they reached his shoulders.
Here’s a perfect example of the high standard women hold when it comes to hair. As my co-worker Melynie was dressing for her wedding, her grandmother passed on this advice for a happy marriage: ‘Always get up an hour before your husband so that he never sees you without your hair fixed.’
This counsel might be embraced by some women, but the only way a man is going to be motivated to get up an hour early to look after his hair is if it catches on fire.
I don’t blame women for caring about hair. There’s something almost noble in clinging to the hope that tomorrow will be a good-hair day. And this hope has captured the attention of modern industry and research.
Now that the Russians are no longer a threat, it appears that the scientists who once applied their energies to splitting the atom have now applied their brilliant minds to the problem of split ends. Having successfully put a man on the moon, we are now ready for the challenge of creating more body and shine.
For example, my wife has something called ‘Shaper shampoo’. On the back it states: ‘A crosslink between botanicals and Babassu oil improves texture and builds high gloss.’
In our bathroom cabinet there are aerosol bottles of ‘sculpting spray’, something called ‘bodifying foam’, a spray gel, ‘volumising spray’, and a mousse especially for ‘scrunching, blow-drying and setting fine to medium hair’. All of them promising more ‘shine, greater ‘volume’, and hair that’s stronger than cable car wire.
I’m pretty cynical about all that stuff. Which is what you would expect from a bloke who gets his hair-care products from the Holiday Inn.
To me, life is like hair. We want to manage it, tame it, control it. We look to science and technology for help, but they often promise more than they can deliver. We read articles. We go to seminars that might just have the one secret to success that we’re missing.
But if we’re ever going to get things straightened out, we need to turn the whole tangled mess over to a Higher Power. And I’m not talking about Dippity-Do.
Kim Peckham and his wife Lori live in West Virginia. She drives 45 minutes to get her hair cut at the ‘Alexandre de Paris’ salon. He gets his hair trimmed at the shop without a name at the back of ASDA.
I recently took a few moments to reflect on my childhood and found that my memories generally consist of (1) opening Christmas presents, and (2) falling off my bicycle. If I were ever in danger and my life flashed before my eyes, the audio portion would sound something like this: ‘Thank you’; ‘Ouch!’ ‘Thank you’; ‘Ouch!’ ‘Thank you’; ‘Ouch!’ 
