Skull Busters, Dippity Do, and Suffer to Be Beautiful

The topic for Sunday Scribblings this week is hair. I am going to date myself tonight as I think back to what we did to have beautiful hair before the time of curling irons, electric curlers, blow dryers, or those crimping irons. What I know for sure is that we suffered. Women in my age group and older may recall having their hair done up in bobby pins, clippies, brush curlers, multicolored plastic curlers or pink sponge curlers. We then slept on them. Who had time to sit under a hair dryer like the ladies at the beauty shop? Besides, not too many of us in my neighborhood had those fancy portable Sunbeam Hair Dryers at home.

When my mom moved from brush curlers to the plastic ones with a thing that snapped each of them in place, my dad called them skull busters. We laughed recently when we found a picture of Mom in her famous curlers. I didn't think she would appreciate that picture on my blog tonight! For me the ritual was washing my hair on Saturday night and Mom "doing up my hair" in bobby pins. Later I think they fell out too easily so she used silver clippies. If I had a home perm I think the curl lasted quite a few nights. I guess I only had to suffer to be beautiful on Saturday night before Sunday School the next day.

All this hair care required tools. We had to have curler bags, clippie and bobby pin boxes, pink picks to hold brush rollers in place,hair nets to keep our styles intact, and fancy, lacy roller caps. We took our hair styling serious. The worst nightmare at our house often times wasn't the "sleeping with curlers in your hair" torture. It

was the moment my dad was barefoot and stepped on a clippie, a brush curler, or a bag of plastic curlers in the bathroom. We brought out the Cuss Box when that happened. My brother probably had his moments of annoyance as a bobby pin had to be fished out of the toilet or curlers fell in the bathtub. They always seems to be where they didn't belong.

When I was older suddenly everyone wanted just body in their hair. Dippity Do was the product that helped when we rolled our long hair in orange juice cans or huge plastic rollers. We kept our bangs straight with pink hair tape. I remember not having pink hair tape one time and using scotch tape. Not a good idea! The pink mark across my forehead took days to fade away. Then we ratted our hair, smoothed our hair, lightened our hair with lemon juice, and grew out our bangs. It was amazing the rituals we suffered through in becoming a woman just to be beautiful. I laugh now when I hear someone say, " I am having a bad hair day." Try having a bad hair decade! There was relief when it was cool and hip to wear bandannas over your hair and it didn't mean you were in some gang!

Today I'll take an occasional curling iron burn or hair that needs a trim over bobby pins, skull busters, and Dippity Do! To find other Sunday Scribbling posts on hair go here.