So.....I had 80s hair

Not that “super high you could touch the sky” 80s hair. Mine was more kinda big but not really. Born with natural mousy brown hair that wasn’t quite thick but wasn’t quite thin either, my hair had an aversion to being “big.” Not that I didn’t try. I ratted it and emptied my can of Aqua Net just as much as the next girl. Only problem was the minute the hair spray touched my head, it knocked my hair down and I was left with a flatter, greasy look that I couldn’t brush out thanks to the fact that it now formed the strongest wind barrier this world has ever seen. The only way to fix it was to wash the hair again. Aqua Net was some seriously potent stuff. In my numerous attempts to achieve height, I finally became desperate enough to get perms. It helped, but every time I would get one, I’d look in the mirror afterwards and immediately recoil in horror. Then eventually the perm would relax, look not half bad, and the memory would fade….prompting me to get another one once the curls relaxed to the point of non-existing. The process would then repeat itself.

This went on for several years until finally the 80s and its big hair days started to fade. Most were unhappy as they liked their big hair, and some have continued to carry on this tradition even today. I, of course, was ecstatic. I honestly hated all the maintenance and looked forward to throwing away the Aqua Net and just allowing my hair to hang there and do what it wants. Which is basically nothing. It works for us.

I’m not quite sure why we tortured ourselves to get our hair to stand at unnatural attention, but we did, and then years later, we mostly try to hide that fact. I went on a spree once to find as many photos as possible from the glory days of heavy eyeliner and acid washed jeans. I was able to locate most of them….but you can’t ever completely hide from bad taste. Luckily there is a whole generation of people who went through it with me. Now we don’t laugh at our parents old photos of themselves from high school as much as we used to. Not as much…….