That is a photo of yours truly, during my first year of college in the early ‘80’s. I had never used hair products beyond shampoo and conditioner, and then I made the unfortunate mistake of getting a “body wave” during my senior year of High School. Yeah, that’s when we all discovered my natural curl. I looked like a deranged poodle. Anyway, I went off to college in the big city of Minneapolis, and soon really, really needed a haircut. My friend took me to this high-end salon that his friend owned, and they asked what I wanted done with my hair. Since I just wanted the perm/”body wave” gone as much as possible, I hadn’t focused more than that on my desired outcome. The salon owner handed me a GQ magazine (I had never seen one before that) and told me “Pick out something you like, and we’ll see if we can do that.”
I selected a picture of what I thought was nice looking, and he said “Yep, we can do that.” After much pampered cutting and fussing, I was introduced to hair gel. You have to understand, this was the EARLY ‘80’s. Practically nobody even knew what hair gel was. The best part of all? They did the whole thing for free! Hey, I was a starving art student, in practically the literal sense, and I jumped at the offer.
Anyway, hair gel was expensive in those days. At least, for me. It was then that I discovered the cheap alternative. Dippity Do. Slather some of that on, and a brief spritz of Paul Mitchell “Freeze & Shine” (the more expensive stuff) and I was set. So was my hair. I once had an instructor ask me, two hours into class, “Is your hair EVER going to dry?” Heh. The only drawback to Dippity Do is if you use too much, and your hair is bleached/blond, you could end up with slightly tinted pink hair.
If you were really broke, and it was wintertime in Minneapolis, you could go outside with damp hair and it would hold for at least a little while. Hours later, it just melted and fell.
Looking back, I still think I did the ‘80’s proud. For the most part.