Soak Up The Sun

Today is a busy one and I just came home to refuel with a bit of lunch and an iced cold tea. It is HOT, outside!! It is one of those muggy, heat filled days of summer. When I was getting ready to leave, earlier, I was drying my hair and getting ready to straighten it to face the humidity. I noticed the ends are looking a bit dry and I was glad that a hair appointment is in my near future. While I was inspecting my hair, I started thinking how much of a toll this summer weather does to a mid-ish 40's girl's hair. Then it made me stop and think of all of the summers I spent growing up and how I really was never that concerned about my summer hair care regime.

In my ever changing moods, when did summer hair get so complicated? Or, when did I become so obsessed with it? There is a big difference in the really young me and the still youngish me. I used to say...bring on the sun!! Soak up the sun was my mantra. I wanted the sun to bleach out my hair to the lightest levels of blonde, each summer. What a difference a few 20-30 years makes.

When I was really young, I could have cared less about the state of my hair. It was longish, parted down the center, dirty blonde. We belonged to a swim club and being a child of the 70s, like most children, got packed up, each day, to spend the day at the pool. I remember my mother telling my father that it would be the best investment ever. Translated, once we unpacked our towels and things, she ventured off to find her female cronies and all of the kids fended for themselves. Nobody watched us swim or looked out for our safety. I think I was 5 or 6 years old and my brother was two years younger than me. My mother would lock him in at the kiddie pool, find her friends and I would meet up with my young galpals. On our own. Jumping into water. I don't think there were swimmies or arm floats and any floating device was prohibited. Basically, you learned really young to tread water, hold your breath and know the dead man's float. Our parents were not going to sit by the pool to watch us. Neither were the lifeguards. They were the older kids all scamming on other older kids. The young set fended for themselves. Anyway...back to my hair.

I would spend hours in chlorine. Then, after finally getting my mother to understand my phobia of the public bathing house at the swim club, she agreed to let me go home and shower. But, once home, I would jump on my bike and head out til dusk. I would shower right before bed. 10 hours of chlorine being soaked up by my hair. My hair never looked so good, each summer. Shimmery, shiny, that chlorine was great!

Fast forward a few years to later teen life. We no longer went to the swim club so my pals and I would scam out pools to hang at. I remember that we read in one of our magazines that lemon juice would totally bleach out your hair to the summer blondest of blonde. Okay...forget the lemonade, we needed lemons for our hair!! Another article told us to comb HYDROGEN PEROXIDE through our hair. ????? Okay, we knew no fear. I am not even going into the Sun-In summer. So, some of us emerged with platinum blonde hair (I am sure that my memory is being kind to me. In my mind, I am thinking we were the hottest chicks ever to walk the summer planet, in reality, I am sure not.) Anyway, my hair stayed in perfect condition!

So, why when I decide that it is time to protect my hair, my scalp, my 6 weeks of color, the ends, do I end up needing at least three products for smoothing and an anti-humidity hair spray? When did the hair tables all turn on me? I mean, I really like my hair. Yes, I am vain. And, it isn't a brillo pad or a fire hazard but how did I go from soaking up the sun with my hair to hiding it under a ball cap?

These were just the thoughts and memories that flashed by when I was inspecting the ends of my hair. Don't get me started on my sun spots.