Oh no, is crimping back?

Sitting in the hairdresser’s chair last week, wishing for a total transformation but knowing that I’d end up asking for a trim, I turned to the style pages of the nearest paper and read that crimping is back. Remember crimping? If you don’t, then congratulations. You’re exactly the right age to try it this time around.

Alas, I do remember crimping and I remember it as one of the most unattractive hair trends of the 1980s, right up there with the permed mullet (which also seems to be on the way back again if the internet can be trusted). Basically, it involved pressing your hair between corrugated hot irons that left you with a crinkly “do”. For texture, think McCoy’s. It looked brilliant on the models in Just Seventeen and the girls from Bananarama. On me, it looked as though I’d stuck my fingers in a socket for the five minutes it took for the crinkle to drop out, leaving me looking like the lead singer from Prefab Sprout again. There were many pop stars I wanted to look like in the 1980s, but Paddy McAloon with his lank brown bob, was not one of them.

I’ve always had rubbish hair. There’s plenty of it but the individual strands are so fine and flyaway that they stick to my face like a spider’s web at the slightest hint of a breeze. My disappointing locks are the reason I never wear lipstick. I can’t bear the sensation of hair getting stuck to my mouth. When I was small, I’d refuse to go outside if it was windy, so much did I hate the sensation of hair in my face. Dad’s solution was to take me with him to the barber, who gave me a short back and sides every six weeks. Thus began my “misgendered years”. But that’s another story…

Suffice to say, I have always wanted great big hair that did what I wanted it to do, but I’ve very rarely had it. In 1985, crimping seemed to offer the perfect solution: an easy route to volume and fashion kudos. In reality it offered disappointing results that lasted nowhere near as long as the pain of an accidentally crimped ear. A year later, I managed to persuade my parents to let me have an actual perm. I can’t tell you how happy I was as I stepped out of the salon, reeking of perming lotion and with strict instructions not to wash my hair for a week. For a few short days, I had bounce. I had brio. My hair stayed back from my face without an Alice band. I could even wear those Eighties blouses with the big padded shoulders without my best frenemy calling me “pinhead”.

The joy did not last. The determinedly straight nature of my hair won out and within a week, the perm had all but dropped out altogether on the right side, leaving me looking like the fire alarm had gone off halfway through my appointment. I went back to the salon in despair. I hadn’t even had the chance to debut my swishy new look at the under-18s night at Cinderella’s.

“You’ve just got that kind of hair,” the stylist told me as she let limp strands of it fall through her fingers. “But don’t worry. It’ll drop out on the other side too. Then you’ll be even again.”

The trials and tribulations of a woman in search of good hair might seem trivial, but years after that terrible perm I think at last I understand why it all felt so important. I think I was suffering from a kind of “hair dissonance”. As an adoptee, I was the only member of my family who didn’t have great hair. My sister Kate had glorious honey-blonde waves that, when plaited, were long and thick enough for a prince to climb up, should she ever find herself stuck in a tower. Mum, too, had thick hair with a natural wave that made her one-length bob look “French chic” rather than “Paddy from Prefab”, as mine did.

No one understands the power of family resemblance like an adoptee. I longed for someone to tell me I looked like Mum and Kate, even if that meant cheating. Aged 10, envious of my sister’s golden-brown skin, I asked my parents to buy me a bottle of fake tan and sported orange stripes all summer. For those few dizzy days when my hair was curly, I felt like I looked right at last. I just wanted to be the same as the people around me. My sister, my family, my peer group. I wanted to fit in.

Sadly, my first and only experience with a perm brought home the fact that I would never have big hair. While my sister and my friends went bouffant during the Baywatch years, I had to accept that I would always be Paddy and never Pamela.

Some years having crap hair feels worse than others, especially when fashion calls for statement tresses to balance statement outfits. For the last couple of years, I’ve had to eschew the trend for “buffet dresses” with big puffy sleeves. They really do need to be balanced with a proper mane – if you don’t want to look like you’ve gone out in your nightdress. I’ve spent way too much time poring over those dresses online, wondering if I could make them work for me. Not without wig, is the answer.

Next to the article about crimping was another fashion spread of the sort of oversized coats and jackets that similarly require big hair. Waiting to get my hair washed, I started down a familiar rabbit hole. Maybe I should try something different. Perhaps perm-technology has changed. Perhaps if I tried crimping…

Parys, my lovely hairdresser, appeared at my shoulder.

“So, what are we going to do today?” she asked.

“Just a trim,” I told her.