Michelle, of Decline Designs fame, has been a longtime supporter of The Demoiselles – since the beginning! We’ve loved her numerous contributions to our Flickr pool, her fresh perspective, and her massive indie design talent. She is a truly unique individual and we value her opinion and authority hugely. If you’d like to contact Michelle (or any other guest poster) regarding their posts, please contact guestblogger@thedemoiselles.com!

Oh, hair. It’s really interesting how people read hair; long, flowing locks are traditionally feminine, while a short, spikey ‘do is usually seen as a sign of rebellion, even if in a small way. It’s also amazing what a change in hairstyle or color can bring about in confidence, whether a great haircut making you feel on top of the world, or a terrible color making you want to hide in a corner and cover it with a hat.

When I was younger, I had straight-ish blonde hair. I never kept it in a set style but after I hit middle school, I rarely cut it much shorter than my shoulders, and a lot of the time it was longer than that. It also went decidedly curly once I hit puberty and I HATED that! Having to deal with frizzy hair all the time and questions from my classmates about why I didn’t just straighten it was enough to make anyone cranky.

Like many girls in that age bracket, my self-esteem was the lowest of the low, and looking back, I feel like I used my hair almost as a way to help shield myself from the world. I never bothered to pull it back or accessorize it, but I felt like it kept attention off my face, which was a great comfort since I was convinced I always looked terrible.

As I went into high school, I got better at taking care of my hair, learning which products made my curls flat or excessively crunchy, but I still never bothered to do anything with it. I used my long hair as a security blanket, and I find it almost amusing looking back that I can see my confidence levels rising as my hair got shorter and shorter! I cut it off into a bob in my junior year, and then into a slightly unfortunate pixie cut in the middle of my senior year – I don’t think it actually looked bad, but I wasn’t really confident enough for it, and someone’s comment that I looked like a “little boy with cancer” didn’t help either. I let it grow out a bit and then right before graduating I had it cut into a very short, razored pixie cut.

I loved having super short hair. It was relatively low maintenance, although I did have to straighten it, but once my hair gets that short it doesn’t have a lot of curl anyway. Shortly after getting it cut, I put a few chunks of fuchsia in there, as my employer at the time didn’t care and neither did my parents. Then I went full-on blue. I absolutely loved it. It’s hard to explain, but doing something that flies in the face of most societal conventions is incredibly freeing. Keep in mind that I lived in a very small town in the Bible Belt at this time, so that goes double! And I got used to talking to strangers, as people regularly ask about my hair. I used to be painfully shy in groups of large people, and now the idea of striking up a conversation with someone isn’t very intimidating at all. Not to mention, it made me feel a lot more free to wear what I wanted to wear; as there isn’t a lot you can add to an ensemble that will top a mohawk (which came a few months after the blue).

Having funky colored hair isn’t for everyone; no matter how great you feel about it, there will be some people who will make rude remarks. It doesn’t bother me, and after moving to a much larger city (Austin), I don’t receive much of any negative feedback at all. I think some of the comments I got actually helped me out, as they gave me a thicker skin and they make something like an odd sideways look at my hair or outfit seem pretty minor by comparison!

I’m not suggesting you go and dye your hair electric blue; I know that’s out of the question for many people, for whatever reason! But take a long hard look at your hair and ask yourself if you’ve been using it as a security blanket, and what you can do to change that.

An aside to curly girls: It is really, really worth the effort to find a stylist that will work with your hair and knows how to do so. I went years without one, and now that I’ve found one, I wish I had done so a long time ago! It’s a lot easier to work with natural curl instead of against it, not to mention much better for your hair. When I was in middle and high school, stick-straight hair was definitely “the thing” and I got a lot of comments like “You know, you’d be so pretty if you’d straighten your hair!”. (side note: who DOESN’T love a backhanded compliment, amirite? *eyeroll*) I’m glad to see that the pendulum is starting to swing the other way a bit, or at least find a happy medium, but I still see people hating their curls and I don’t understand why! Love ‘em, girls, they’re gorgeous!

And a big thank you to the Demoiselles for letting me share! I love what you ladies are doing, never stop!

To contact Michelle regarding her post, send all feedback to guestblogger@thedemoiselles.com and be sure to visit her over at Decline Designs!

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