Hairy situation

Clever, yes? No! What would be really clever would be to talk about something completely un-hair-related. But this is a post about hair, because I am unoriginal.

I have a dilemma... well, not really, but let me lay it on the line here. I have ridiculously curly hair... thanks Mom, and when it's dry, and even most of the time it's wet too, it's frizzy as hell:

You see the frizz halo? This picture has not been altered in any way. It's there all the time unless massive leave-in conditioner is employed.

Now, the "dilemma" is what the sam hill I'm going to do with it for the wedding, because my hair doesn't cooperate under the best conditions, and don't even get me started on what it does in the worst conditions. Suffice it to say that during the winter, I've been mistaken for a hay bale by more than one farm animal.

Fun fact: my mom used to put my hair out in the yard after hair cuts for the birds to make nests with. I thought this was an everyone thing. I put Kyle's hair outside after a haircut once.

No birds touched it... it turns out your hair has to be the texture of straw or hay and the consistency of steel wool for birds to make nests out of it.

Anywho, I could go on all day! But the "dilemma" is that Kyle met me with curly hair, and when every other guy was noticing other body parts and claiming that the first thing they notice is my eyes, he said he noticed my hair first. I believed him because he looked at my hair when he said it, not my "eyes."

Everyone always says not to change your hair for the wedding because it'll be like you're not the person your fiance fell in love with. Yeah, now, when it comes to that show Bridalplasty?

I'd have to agree.

But we're talking about the difference between the first picture and this:

Coy smile because I know how much better this looks than my curly picture above. It might not be as familiar to people as the curly haired Ashley, but it's definitely the less frizzy version, and I'm sorry people, I am not going to have a bunch of frizzy haired pictures to remember this day with.


Here's one more reason why I will not have curly wedding hair... the only acceptable hairstyle is this:

This is cute, but I don't want my hair up, I wanted it down, and that's not plausible with my hair curly. And tendrils? They happen to look OK here but 9 times out of 10 they look like jerry curl



HA! Silly. Moving on. So since I have settled on the hair being straight, I must also settle on how I'm going to wear it. Well, I've been very unoriginal thus far about the hair styles that are catching my eye right now. I know that I want it to be informal, no updos, and wavy like in my coy picture. Here's what I've come up with:

From most formal to least formal (I only like the top left updo because it's messy). I think there's just something about the waves that make any hair style look good. My favorite favorite is the middle one... could you have guessed that? Good thing is though, that on that particular woman, her hair looks thinner than mine. I'd like more body to my hair (like the bottom right) and I think I already have more body because my hair is so thick.

The best thing about all of these styles is that they do not require massive amounts of time sitting in a chair, getting thousands of pins stuck in me and whole cans of hair spray poured on me. I'm super super psyched about this and I plan on playing with my hair next time I get it straightened.

I have to take this opportunity to apologize to Kyle's mom because I know she prefers the curl. Well, another thought occurs after looking at that curly hair style: That girl looks 12... and not just because her face actually looks like a 12-year-old's. Her hair makes her look younger. The straight hair is more grown-up looking. Curly hair never looks grown-up. I've not yet reached adulthood. I enjoy acting like a kid and I think my hair gives me more reason to act like a kid. 1) It's bouncy, like a kid jumping off the walls, and 2) it continually takes me back to my childhood in the 80's, back when my hair style was thee hair style.

But for one day, I want to be a grown-up, I want to be still, and I want to look like a lady, not the little girl who ran around the church at my parents' wedding, singing with the organist (incriminating picture coming soon). Something tells me that "the hair doesn't make the woman."

More on this next time I get my hair did. Anybody have any comments, advice, questions, complaints?