The Mystery of Hairstyles

I think I've discovered a great secret. I think I finally understand the mystery of hairstyles. Here it is: At a given hair length, there really is only one hairstyle that we are all trying to achieve. We are all just more or less screwing it up depending on where we live. Yep. That's it.

Let me explain what I mean.

Let's pretend there is a fashion-icon trendsetter living in Fashion Capital. Let's call her "Ms. Trend". Ms. Trend sports a set of long locks that are straight and smooth from root to tip, with nice sharp edges. (I have to digress and say that except for the sharp edges, we called this the "Marcia Brady" haircut when I was young. I wonder what 18 year old supermodels would say if they knew they had Marcia Brady's hairdo. I wonder if they know who Marcia Brady is.)

OK, so Ms. Trend leaves New York one day and heads to South Atlantic Coastal City where the humidity is at high fog density, the temperature is somewhere between Venus and the Sun, and the air condenses on your skin when you walk. Thirty seconds after stepping off the airplane, Ms. Trend has massive frizz. A new style is born. Thousands of teenagers world wide start exercising their credit cards for perms. Now the real irony is that Ms. Trend didn't create a frizzy hairdo. She created a straight one ... and it came out differently just once. So, an entire generation of wanna-be's are trying to get Ms. Trend's hairdo all the wrong way! They should be straightening their hair and moving to South Florida to get the right look. Remember -- it isn't what you do, it is where you live.

I have a theory that Jersey "Big Hair" came about much this way. Some fashion ancestor of Ms. Trend's was slicked with styling product and accidentally set foot on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey or on the beach in Atlantic City, met the wind, her hair froze that way, and she got snagged by the papperazzi when she returned inside before her travelling hair stylist could break the glue and pull her hair back down. I'm still working on this one, but it would explain an awful lot of things, don't you think?

This revelation on hair styles has explained something I've wondered about myself for years and years. I am styling my hair the exact same way that I was in college. Really. I'm not that original. But I was looking at pictures of myself 10 years ago, wondering how I ever got that kind of lift and ... yes ... height in my hair then that I don't have now? If you have been with me so far, you understand it already. Nothing changed. I just MOVED! Yep. In Windy Coastal City where I used to live, my hair froze back away from my face and made a nice poof on my head. In humid Virginia, things lie a little bit more flat.

This takes an awful lot of stress out of styling and trips to the hair salon. I know the truth now. There is only one hairstyle out there, and the only difference is how long, how short, and how blonde to go.