Modern Hill Woman

The Higher The Hair,

The Closer To God

I graduated high school in 1977. Ours was the generation of blue eyeshadow, clear lip gloss, bell bottoms and tube tops. Some rocked an Afro, mainly the guys. Said guys mostly went for the girls with straight hair and highly feathered bangs. For those of us whose genetics didn’t provide straight hair, our beauty routine in the morning required some effort. Luckily for us, the blow dryer and electric curling iron had recently become available.

Not so for my older sisters in the 1960s. Theirs was the era of the beehive, the bouffant, and the flip. Big hair in the 60s proved that beauty doesn’t come easy.

In a house full of girls during that time, there was no shortage of Dippity-Do, pink hair tape, rat tail combs, and Aquanet hairspray.

Dippity-Do was a prehistoric styling gel in a jar with the consistency of Jell-O. The green was for regular hold or pink for extra hold. It was used to set hair in rollers, or plaster bangs and fly away hairs in place.

Scotch brand pink hair setting tape was widely used in the 60s. It held bangs down overnight, secured hair on the nape of the neck to keep it straight, and also kept pin curls in place until they were set. It was often used with Dippity-Do.

Hot rollers weren’t invented until the late 1960s, so to achieve the elaborate styles of the day, hair was rolled onto barbed wire-like brush curlers with 3” plastic hair picks holding them in place, and slept in over night. Finding a comfortable sleeping position could be a bit tricky. If you didn’t want to sleep on it, a home hairdryer took an hour or two. A typical hairdryer was the size of a small waffle iron, with push buttons and a long hose connected to a plastic bonnet. Some women just threw a head scarf on and went out in public with curlers in their hair.

Knowing what direction to place the curlers in for each different hairstyle was a learned art. To achieve the wanted volume, hair was teased and sprayed, then teased and sprayed again with copious amounts of Aquanet, until the hair was so stiff it could deflect bullets. The bouffant hairdo may be the possible cause of the hole in the ozone layer.