Hair: The great hormonal weather vane
From breakups to baby hairs, my hair has tracked every version of me (pics included as evidence)
Brush it, bleach it, braid it, bang it, Britney 2007 it.
It’s just a load of dead cells sprouting out of our heads. It’s just keratin. But hair, lads… it holds some amount of power.
First of all, it can determine whether I’m about to have the best or the worst day of my life. If all goes well, I feel invincible. If it doesn’t, I fling a hairbrush into a wall and think about my future life as a Polyfilla girlie. Our hair gives us away, too: “I’ve just had a baby,” or “I’ve just been dumped,” or “I’m about to make some questionable life choices.” From the Irish dancing ringlets of childhood to the I-don’t-care curry buns* of middle age (that veer dangerously between stylish and Ms Trunchbull), our hair isn’t just hair. It’s expression, fashion, a feeling, a language, a history, a choice.
There are, of course, times where it’s not about choice at all. Illness. Treatment. Genetics. Hair thins. Falls out. Disappears altogether. And with it, sometimes, goes our sense of self. It’s worth remembering in those moments: You are not your hair, but your hair will always be yours. Even when it’s gone, its memory and your history with it sticks around.
One of my most vivid childhood memories is being in Peter Mark, upstairs in Northside Shopping Centre, which I went to for my first proper hair cut. My hair was long, and I remember the hairdressers cooing over it, how long it was, how brave I was to get it trimmed. I felt unique and doted upon – now I know that they would dote on any little girl in for her first cut, as I dote on Lydia whenever she asks me has her hair grown longer, but still, a core memory was made because of my hair.
My hair is like Met Eireann but for hormones. A stupid little hormonal weather vane. Puberty? Oily roots, frizz, and experimentation with colours that look good on precisely no one. Break up? HIYA unwelcome fringes and a metaphorical chopping off of all that doesn’t “serve” us. Pregnancy? Hello shampoo-commercial hair that shines like the sun. Oh but wait… Postpartum. Oh, she gone. Like, literally in clumps down the shower drain. Bald patches at the hairline. Too good to be true. And then of course, perimenopause welcomes wiry newcomers sprouting in unexpected places (and not always on our heads). Hair is a humbling mistress. Lady Keratin – she giveth, and she taketh away.