No amount of hairspray will ever be of any use to me. My hair is the most untameable, strangest mane in the world. It’s fine, but there’s blemmin’ loads of it. It’s curly, but that wiry, frizzy kind of stubborn curly that looks like I’ve just got out of bed: a bed made of barbed wire stuffed with straw, thrown together by brawling cats. Brawling cats who’ve been drinking. Meths.
One of the reasons I’ve been growing it lately is that sometimes it fares better if it’s just allowed to do its own thing. Shorter, the curls haven’t come in yet, so it needs lots of tweaking for me to pretend it’s straight, and not a premature bubble perm. Longer and left to dry naturally, it’s insane, but insane and soft. Unless you know me very well, or knew me in the early 90s, you’ve never seen it like this: I always blow-dry it semi-straight when I’m going to be where people can see me. It’s less alarming (brawling meths cats, etc). If I’m working, it’s easier on the makeup and hair people if they’re working with it straight because it leads to fewer continuity issues, and fewer accusations from onlookers that they’re unable to do their jobs. One such hair artiste, before I did some telly in Australia, helpfully informed me that “Jeez, you’re hair’s hard work!” Many people think that’s insulting: I was just delighted that I was no longer alone in my opinion.
I own a full-strength industrial hair-dryer which was given to me at a reduced rate on a job. I think they felt sorry for me. I have ceramic hair-straighteners which are just out of every shot in which I’ve ever appeared. I own paddle and bristle brushes, and 2 different kinds of Afro comb. I spend a fortune I don’t have on heat-minimising, shine-enhancing, miracle-offering products, yet I still get into work (like the other morning in Birmingham) and look as if I’ve spent the previous evening crocheting my hair into a nest more well-constructed than Tom Cruise’s “I’m not gay” statements. Having been asked to arrive with my hair straight, a minor panic ensued as it was ascertained that they’d have to start from scratch. I had been up since 5.30 using all the above equipment. It was not enough.
To make matters worse, about half of the scenes we were doing were every frizzy girl’s nightmare: outside. Oh well, at least it gave people a laugh. You can see it in March.
Meanwhile, I spend my time off work letting it dry without heat, so it doesn’t get crispy as well as frizzy, and envying people who get to use the word “lank” about themselves. I regularly get tutted at by hairdressers who insist that it’s dry and brittle until they touch it, and it’s not. Ha! That shows them. There is no amount of split-end chopping that can save me, because the ends aren’t split. So there. You’re wrong, hair-folk. I’m doomed. Let me and my Afro combs deal with it.
I risked hair damage by running the NYC Marathon for the Alzheimer’s Society. Please give generously here.
