Mop Top

My hair and I have had a funny relationship throughout my life.

As a kid I didn’t think much of it. I knew I had blonde hair and that my mom was rough whenever she tried to pull my hair together into a ponytail. At one point she was fed up with trying to do my hair that she had it cut so short that I looked like a boy when I wore my brother’s hand me downs. 

It didn’t become a focal point of any sort until I hit puberty and all of a sudden my hair developed a wave, a soft curl of sorts. Under certain conditions I could even get my hair to almost have ringlets if I had washed it and let it air dry. 

Both my mom and I were fairly useless with hair, so I often ran around with a frizzy mop on my head as a teenager. In high school I discovered hair getl, so my hair ended up being less frizzy but still very much a mop. 

My hair colour started to darken as I moved through my teenage years, and somehow my strict-ish parents consented to letting me dye my hair a lighter shade of the blonde-brown that I had. At 14, this made me feel like the cool kid, and the mature kid for the first time. 

In reality, it made zero impact at school or amongst my peers. 

Because my mop remained a mop, only blonder. 

By 17 I took this hair dying privilege to another level. The trend at my highschool was to have black dyed hair, but my friends and I decided to go on the other end of the colour spectrum: maroon, purple, blue, etc…

I’m aware that this doesn’t seem so outrageous of an act nowadays, but nearly 20 years ago (that I can even make a statement like that, yikes!) in a sleepy, rural Canadian city, it was. Having hair dyed a colour anything other than a natural one was basically an act of rebellion, not a normalized trendy fashion statement. 

Naturally, my mom was furious. 

I continued the colouring of fabulous colours for another year or so. I became disenchanted with the dyes because they wouldn’t stick to my hair. One wash and they were out. Of course, information about hair care, products, and the best way to keep the colour wasn’t so readily available on or offline. 

By the time my high school graduation came around, I had dyed my hair a respectable colour of red. I figured I at least owed it to my grandmother who had sewn my grad outfit from scratch to appear presentable. 

After graduation I became fed up with my hair. I was starting nursing school and wasn’t sure how much money I was going to have so the idea of dying my hair every month seemed like an unnecessary expense in money and time. My hair was also very damaged from all the colour manipulation, making me feel like I wanted a do over with my hair. 

So I shaved it off. 

Not like a skinhead, but certainly short enough to look like an angry lesbian. Or so people kept telling me. This was clearly before the days of Natalie Portman making head shaving a trendy statement. And prior to Britney Spears making it a cry for help. 

I don’t recall my hair taking a long time to grow out. I had regular hair cuts along the way to make sure I didn’t sport a mullet, but it still wasn’t long before the mop made its appearance again. This time around I was a bit more savvy with hair products and bobby pins so I could look quite cute from time to time. 

Despite my original intentions with shaving off my head it wasn’t long before I was back at the hair dying again. I stuck to respectable, professional colours this time, and mostly blonde. At some point I got tired of being blonde and wanted to know what it was like to be a brunette, and a redhead. This was all fine until I moved to the UK and got tired of having the dark hair. I went through almost a year long process of lightening and growing my hair out because I felt the pressure to keep my hair long and growing. 

It wasn’t long after this that I stopped processing my hair entirely: no dyes, better shampoos and conditioners (although I know now that limited the use of both is also best for hair), no blow drying, and very rarely, special occasions did I straighten my hair. 

My motivation? My mom’s alopecia. 

No one ever did figure out why my mom lost all her hair, but it was devastating for her. For most of her life, my mom felt like her hair was the only pretty and likeable thing about herself. She went through numerous wigs, different styles, textures, natural fibers, synthetic fibers until she found a few styles that suited her. She came to the conclusion that as good as the synthetic wigs were, the natural hair wigs looked the best. It was just something about how the hair would fall into place. 

All these things contributed to my inspiration to grow out my hair for the purpose of donating it. 

Nevermind that my long hair had become a burden to me. My ex-husband always told me that he liked my hair long, so I didn't feel any pressure to cut it short. And while we were together there just never seemed to be enough money for me to get my haircut properly, so my hair ended up looking really scraggly and stringy. 

So when I decided to measure my hair and it was more than adequate length, I didn’t waste anymore time to get it cut off. About 18 months ago this happened, which was good timing because my 33rd birthday was coming up, my divorce had come through, and my mom had been diagnosed with cancer. 

Definitely a good time to make some life altering appearance changes. 

It was weird to hold my own hair in my hands, to feel the weight of it and see it’s colours in front of me as other people would have seen it. I held it to the light more than once to see how coppery it actually was. A good week later I finally had the nerve to say goodbye to my hair and post it to the Little Princess Trust. 

I’m not huge into parting with my money for charities (another thread for another time), but I’m an advocate for donating time and organs where possible. Blood and hair regenerates quietly and easily while you’re alive and living your best life. And when you’re dead, you won’t need your body. They are minimal commitments that could change someone’s life.