And Beth says: "But I take exception to some of these: there is nothing wrong with Farrah hair. It's coming back, you know."

Darlin' -- it never left. Farrah hair is in evidence in shopping malls all over the Great State of Texas.

You mean, it's not everywhere?

The mind boggles.

-- Anonymous, March 06, 2000

Answers

Wow. Farrah hair was still in evidence at my high school in 1986, and I thought that was pretty horrifying. I thought by now it had entirely disappeared.

My hair would never Farrah properly. Too flat, and too many cowlicks. This was a source of tremendous unhappiness for me when I was twelve.

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

I don't think Farrah hair ever disappeared from the rural c&w crowd.

Which reminds me -- the Farrah rerun was on Ally McBeal last night, and I can't remember, does Farrah still have Farrah hair? At least, a modified version?

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

It's hard to tell you if Farrah still has Farrah hair, since it's her face that attracts the most attention these days. Lardy. Sunscreen and moisturizer, my friends.

and Farrah hair is so prevalent in Texas it's scary.

people still wear their hair in poofs because that's what they've done for twenty-five years.

aqua net has a plant here, i'm assuming.

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

I seem to remember that there were endless variations on Farrah hair. To wit:

1. The sausage roll: that really complicated series of curls that the popular girls did in seventh and eighth grade. Perfect little rolls of shoulder length hair going all the way around their heads to meet in back. My hair would never do that, not even for ten minutes at a time. Girls whose hair did this correctly were almost always named Kim. (Kim Rollins, tell me you never did this with your hair.)

2. The long Farrah look: usually featuring a sort of lifeless flip around the bang area, with little wings in front waving back. Sometimes there was one sausage roll framing the face.

3. Farrah meets Toni Tenille: straight hair that kind of feathered back around the face. My hair did this once or twice, but not for long. Later in life, I found that my hair sometimes did this totally on its own, with no encouragement from me, which has prompted me to endeavor to always wear my hair in a slight A-line to avoid this problem. If you wore this look in the late seventies, you were required by law to keep a pink plastic comb in the back pocket of your Dittos.

4. The bi-level: this has evolved into the mullet, but back in the day, it was very hip to have shortish (not too short) feathery hair on top, angled over the ears, and longer on the bottom. I know it's hard for you young folks to believe this, but this was almost new wave at one point. Then everyone but hockey players realized it was very ugly.

5. The bi-level with a perm: thank God I had started wearing my hair in a bob by the time this mess came around. Oh, wait, there was that time in tenth grade when I got that bad hair cut ... but I digress. Frizzy on the bottom, short and feathered on top. Truly the worst of the worst, and at this point barely traceable to its Farrah origins.

6. The big Farrah do: this one was probably the closest to the actual Charlie's Angels look (Farrah herself was always more teased than feathered), but I associate it more with the late eighties and Marla Maples than Farrah. A team of experts and ten tons of styling products could not give me big hair a la the late eighties, so I have nothing but envy for anyone who was able to achieve this look.

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

Not quite like a bull in a china shop, but nearly so this old man has this comment, to whit: May the Lord bless the sneaky, sharp man who finally succeeded in conning the human females into being the fancy showy ones thus not requiring us to wear all the ruffles, wigs, restraining garments. I do not think I could live ten minutes in any of it. Right after high school my girl cousin and I went to a masquerade party, she as a man and me as a woman. Jeepers, I can still feel the pain of wearing high heels, I was a good roller skater so had no problem with balance or wobble - - - - - those things just plain hurt! All the rest of the fancy things were utterly distracting to me. And hair, oh my gosh, that wig drove me up the wall - - - - I have always been of the laid back male type, hair at whatever length it wished to grow as long as it didn't fall into my eyes. It was washed often and combed neatly, I felt my responsibility to society had ended there. So the old saw paraphrased, "Walk a mile in a woman's shoes before smarting off," seems to me to be quite pertinent. Casual dress for all is this males motto.

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

I always had a Dorothy Hamill haircut myself. Farrah's hair was not only complicated, but the New Orleans humidity kills poofs dead. New Orleans women style their hair as high as Texas women, but one step outside wilts their dos into normal height.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Um sorry, I'm just slightly thrown by Jette's comment. I wasn't aware that the word "poof" was used in the sense of a hairstyle. When you say "New Orleans humidity kills poofs dead", I just have visions of hundreds of gay men falling dead to the ground from the sheer heat I suppose that's what happens you get raised in such a blokey culture as Australia's where "poof" has other connotations

Tonight We Sleep In Separate Ditchesyou learn something new every day, don't you?

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I was too young for a Farrah do.

By the time I was a teen, Cyndi Lauper and Paula Abdul and Duran Duran were the big hair folks.

However, I did watch "Charlie's Angels" as a child and I remember my babysitter, Kate Falvey curling her hair into that kind of hairdo.

Her sister Mary, who was our au pere off and on in Paris, had a Dorothy Hamill do for a long time, then grew out her hair and tried for the Farrah thingie, without much success. Then she got a body-wave that looked like an afro.

Through all of this, I had waist length hair, except for a brief foray into a short cut, when my friend Kara and I chopped our braids in an effort to look like Nancy Drew.

One horrific day not long after the hair cut, my Mom put the curlers in as she usually did, to help hide the mess I'd made of my hair and when I woke up and took them out in the morning _I_ had a 'fro.

I had to wash my hair twice to get the curls to loosen, though my mother laughed that somehow I had achieved almost effortlessly what my aunt paid tons of money to get at a salon.

At any rate, I have a long-lasting hatred of hairspray that comes from the ballet recitals I used to be a part of between ages 5 and 11.

Since my hair was so long my mom had no problems winding it up tight on top of my head. But the crazy costume ladies would still go after me with the hairspray. So after every performance when I let my hair down, I'd have this nasty layer of crusty stuff against my neck and I just hated it. It also made my hair feel funny for days and days afterwards, even after washing it out.

So when I got to be a teenager, I completely eschewed the use of hair products except for shampoo. Even in the big-hair 80s, I had long wavy hair. The only changes I made were bangs at age 13 and then a cut up to my shoulder blades a year later. Finally I bobbed it when I was 16 and I've been alternating between long wavy Guinevere hair and short curly bobs ever since.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Don't forget that men had goofy hairstyles in the '70s, also. You still occasionally see a blow-dried man with no visible part and the hair on both sides of the head feathered back. I miss the Garfunkel look that I used to sport in high school (it was 1983 and '84, but the '70s got to rural Maine a few years late). Did that survive anywhere? If so, send pictures.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I'll take the "poof" explanation...

A "poof" is when the "bangs" (Or "Fringe" as I learned today) is teased and pulled on top of the head and hair-sprayed stiff. Generally these clumps of hair are fashioned into a flower arrangement, resembling a blossoming hair bulb. Some women tease it towards the back of the head, some tease it towards the sides. My favorite is the Waterfall Poof, where it is straight up and then cascades down one side to the ear.

These were generally worn with the sides of the hair pulled and sprayed back severely and fastened with a large barrette with a bow. Thus the term "Bow-heads" was used to describe girls who wore their hair in this fashion.

It was not uncommon to see them in a t-shirt/stirrup pant combo that was decorated with puffy paint.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

No amount of hair spray, not even Aqua Net, can elevate and hold my hair. Generally, a complicated 'do would collapse and go limp before I even walked out of the bathroom. Farrah was a little before my time, but I dealt with trying to feather my hair, plus half a life of perms. Some good, most not. Let's not get into hair-coloring.

I'd love to kiss the person who invented those spring-action "claws." My hair is to my shoulderblades. Typical morning ritual involves combing out and twisting my hair into a partial French-twist so I can clamp it to the back of my head high enough to keep the soaking wet strands off my neck. Or, I twist all the hair into a bun and clamp with a claw.

When I actually put a little more effort into it, I'll velco-curl my awful bangs (trying to grow them out) and blow-dry my hair to not-dripping. I was delighted yesterday when I discovered I could pull back a small amount of (damp) hair from around my face and literally tie it in a knot to keep it back. Oh, and pigtails. I do Swiss Miss braided pigtails once or twice a week. (When I had to renew my driver's license, I knew the photo would be crappy anyway, so I deliberately wore pigtails. And wouldn'tcha know it? One of the better d.l. photos I've ever had!)

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2000

Farrah is a classic hair stylist. Everytime you see her she's got a newer version of the Farrah-do. At that time hair was being permed like an afro or cut off almost like a man. She brought back the feminine charm to hairstyles, which is what women want. I remember using her shampoo all the time when I was under 10 years old! I think it's about time that the Farrah style revives America's straight plain hair trend. It's much more attractive. The Jaclyn Smith hair was unique and beautiful as well.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2001