Blowing It All Away

I'm hair-challenged. I am not the least bit facile with a blowdryer or curling iron on myself or anyone else.

With thick, curly hair, there's really no point to blowdrying unless you want to straighten your hair. If that's not the goal, or you do it poorly, you end up looking like Rosanna Rosannadanna or a poodle. There was a time, in seventh or eighth grade or so, when I did blowdry my hair. And try to curl the hair framing my face in a pathetic attempt to have that early-eighties "wings" style that was all the rage. What did I end up looking like? A poodle with weird sausage curls on either side of her face.

Now my routine is much more low-key: Wash, condition, spritz with anti-friz spray (where was this stuff when I was in high school? I could have completely avoided all that Dippity-Do-induced crispiness), style with my fingers, and let air dry. I don't even use a comb or brush on my hair.

All well and good, for me. However, I've been contemplating using a blowdryer on Allie now that she is taking swimming lessons. It's been kind of balmy so far in January (thanks, global warming), but a cold snap is on the way. I think it would be a good idea to blow-dry her hair before we leave the Y. Except that I don't really know how to do it. It's not a huge deal, of course, and I probably wouldn't do that embarrassing a job.

But part of me wishes that it were more simple, like when I was little:




All right, maybe not THAT simple.