My mother used to wrap her hair in toilet paper before she went to bed.
I don't know why this has come to mind, unless it's because I had a haircut yesterday. The image of my mother readying herself for bed, though, won't leave me, so I thought I'd write about it and see if that'd send the thoughts on their way.
At some point, she must have removed her makeup, because she put it back on every morning, but I have no memory of seeing her go through a removal process. I do remember watching her "put on her face," as she called it, many mornings. Or prior to going out on a Saturday night with my father.
She had freckles, and she used cover-up liberally, so I suspect she was rarely out of her face, and I wonder how frequently my father saw her without makeup, except for the occasional Saturday when she was more interested in having a housecleaning session than how she looked.
Her hair was teased within an inch of its life, for all of my life, anyway. Her hair was curly and if she didn't tease it, it rolled around itself in cute little ringlets. She might have had an interesting sexy cut with the right stylist, but she went to a woman named Jane who cut hair in her basement at least until I reached adulthood.
The toilet paper was to keep the tease from going flat in the night, although I have never understood this concept. How does wrapping your head in something for your bottom result in perfect hair the next morning?
She knew something I didn't, though, because most mornings, unless she washed her hair, all she had to do was push her hair around with a comb-like hair pick thing (I am as useless with fashion as I am with cooking), and poof, her hair looked as good as it had the day before.
When I was 10 or so, I watched a friend’s mom roll strands of her hair around pieces of cloth. I don’t know why. Alice always wore her hair in one long braid. I was envious of her braid. The other day I wondered if I could get my hair ratted into a bouffant, or whatever it was called. Big hair. I’m sure I would look hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI will never forget the wonder of a woman who, along with her family, came to stay with us when I was a child. She was one of those women who went to the salon once a week to have her hair done. It was dyed black and teased into quite the updo. She wrapped a foam thing around it at night and in the morning she just pushed it around a bit and added more hairspray. I am convinced a hurricane wouldn't have moved it. Just thinking about it now makes my scalp crawl.
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