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View Full Version : Hair in Books [Long Rant]



vendethiel
September 20th, 2013, 09:52 AM
On the rare occasion, I have read a book where the author actually understood long hair, Sherwood Smith or M.M. Kaye come to mind. But recently, I have encountered several books where the author has a complete lack of knowledge regarding long hair and, to make matters worse, write historical books with no knowledge of historical hairstyles or ideas.

I recently read a book where the woman had such long, thick hair that whenever she put it up it gave her headaches. So, she just wore it down and loose around the house, including cooking in front of an open fire!!!! To make matters worse, she had never worn her hair up until she got a job as a school teacher, so she didn’t know how to pin it. But instead of learning, her sister solved the problem by cutting most of her hair off! So, wonderful. Argh!

But that is only one example. Another historical book I read had a girl with hair so thick she couldn’t run a comb through it. (Does that mean the individual strands are that thick or does that mean she has that much hair? :confused:) And she couldn’t ever get it to stay pinned up, even though she used dozens of pins! And no one had any advice for her, because people in the past just didn’t have thick hair, apparently. :rolleyes: So, she just wore it down, instead…

(Historically, pinning hair up was both a rite of passage and an act of modesty! Both women would have wanted to wear their hair up, just like little girls want to wear mom’s shoes and perfume and makeup, and would have worn their hair up to be modest.)

Another book had a woman with long hair, but it kept coming out of its braid. Not becoming fuzzy, but actually unbraiding itself. I assume the author didn’t realize that people tie off the end of their braids?

I really hate it when books do this, because I’m terrified that some girl with little knowledge of hair will believe their message: You can't do anything with thick hair, unless you cut it off.

I keep thinking I should post an amazon review saying, if you have thick hair you don’t have to cut it off. But I never do…maybe I should…

What about you, any books that you feel like ranting (or raving) about the author’s understanding of hair?

HintOfMint
September 20th, 2013, 10:06 AM
I recall some teenage horror book where the main character had hair that would "break brushes." Go figure.

I think all of this is a genre fiction tool to characterize the protagonist as unique, a rule-breaker, someone who can't be caged in, a girl with hair as wild as her... etc.
ETA: or it's a supposed "flaw" that's supposed to enhance her character's beauty. As in, "oh no, my hair is just so thick and luscious that it's so inconvenient for me!" Which can be a real concern, but the purpose is to describe the character.

Salmonberry
September 20th, 2013, 10:14 AM
Hmm, interesting. I guess some authors aim to be more historically accurate than others. I don't read much fiction, so I don't have much to rant about, but the one book/book series I do remember from my childhood that mentioned a character's hair a lot was "Anne of Green Gables". The one part that stuck with me was that the main character always hated her red hair, so she finds some dye that promises to turn her hair a beautiful raven black. She is horrified when it turns it green instead and she has to have her long hair all cut off. I used to hate my blonde hair as a child and wanted it brown, so this story actually helped me appreciate what I had and to not try to mess with it. I can't remember how historically accurate her hairstyles in the rest of the book(s) are. I should re-read those stories someday and see.

KittyBird
September 20th, 2013, 10:18 AM
I don't think little girls will be brainwashed by these books. It's much more likely that they'll be repeatedly told those things by parents, friends, classmates, hairdressers, etc. I have crazy thick hair, and I've always been told that my hair is way too thick, that it must be thinned out and layered, and that I couldn't grow too long because it would be way too heavy and warm. And I believed it, even though I didn't think my hair was that thick, heavy and warm. My hair never bothered me much, but it was a huge issue for the people around me. It's only after I found TLHC that I've stopped getting layers and having my hair thinned, because now I know how to deal with the thickness, and that having very thick hair is not actually a bad thing.

Gotta admit that my hair was significantly easier to deal with when it was thinner though. :o

neko_kawaii
September 20th, 2013, 10:25 AM
In The Secret Garden the main character Mary starts off as an idle sickly looking kid but after she starts playing outside and skipping rope she says, "I'm getting fatter and fatter every day. Mrs. Metlock will have to get me some bigger dresses. Martha says my hair is growing thicker. It isn't so flat and stringy." Which I thought was fairly realistic.

I can't think of any hair nonsense off the top of my head.

jacqueline101
September 20th, 2013, 10:51 AM
I'd like to read the one where a woman breaks brushes with her hair.

Kaelee
September 20th, 2013, 11:00 AM
I'd like to read the one where a woman breaks brushes with her hair.

:laugh: I actually HAVE snapped a comb off in my hair...so have several others (I think we have a few brush breakers around here) somewhere, there is a "your hair's kill list" thread.

FireFromWithin
September 20th, 2013, 11:08 AM
I've read some books where I've just gone nope, not possible. There's one where a character has ankle length hair that he can move and swish around at will and seems to almost have muscles in it! Although most of the rest of the characters apart from all having long wildly curly hair and not knowing how to do anything other than put 'hair goop' in it seem to be fairly realistic. But maybe I'm just making assumptions and an ankle length person will correct me and say that they can dance around without getting their hair tangled at all. It always frustrates me that characters don't seem to know how to do anything other than a ponytail or basic braid. I've read so many books complaining about not being able to French braid that I was starting to think there was an epidemic! My own character has long hair (that gets longer) which had a spell put on it to make it grow super fast and she knows how to use hair sticks (her hair is by no means a main part of the storyline) so hopefully I've helped to even out the realistic hair scales a bit!

Vrindi
September 20th, 2013, 11:57 AM
Another book had a woman with long hair, but it kept coming out of its braid. Not becoming fuzzy, but actually unbraiding itself. I assume the author didn’t realize that people tie off the end of their braids?


My hair crawls out of braids. I don't know how else to describe it. Doesn't matter how I braid it or tie it off, after a few hours, it looks like it's very, very slowly exploding, because little strands all over have just...crawled out. It actually unbraids itself. Not frizz either.

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 11:57 AM
i am a brush breaker. this in fact used to regularly happen when I was a child and was one of the reasons my mom decided that she 'had' to straighten my hair. The combs used to snap in half on a regular basis and the handles used to snap off the brushes. Nobody ever told me that this meant I was especially beautiful and special though. I was in fact given the strong impression that I was a very pretty little girl who would look even better once she 'fixed' her hair. I.e., something was serously wrong with the hair.

one of the last times I went to a hairdresser, all of the teeth broke out of the blow dryer comb attachment. Well, not all. there were maybe 4 or 5 left when she finished doing my hair. the teeth just snapped off one by one and flew all over the salon and there were other customers there who were awe-struck--but I wouldn't say that they were awestruck in aGOOD way. I felt terribly humiliated and gave a huge tip so that the beautician could buy a new attachment.
so--brush breaking hair, realistic and very possible.
Character feeling beautiful and special as a result, not so realistic.
I wonder if the author knew someone who had this problem and romanticized it from the outside?

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 12:04 PM
Depending on which kind of historical fiction you are reading, the authors usually have NO clue about anything.
characters regularly won't wear stays (which don't hurt, if properly done and give support and going without would be like going braless nowadays, if you were anything more than an A cup)
no mention is ever made of such inconveniences as outhouses, smallpox which gives scars, lack of refrigeration, etc.
Historical facts are completely twisted around or just ignored.
When people did things in the past that people disapprove of nowadays, the sympathetic characters NEVER do them. They are always anti-slavery, modern feminist types who disapprove of organized religion, somehow floating through the past, giving the other characters lectures on how they should change and sounding 'noble'. they always do things like run the underground railroad, sneak Jews away from Nazis and save people from the guillotine during the French revolution--with complete safety. Huh?
this seems to be especially true in romantic fiction and books written for children.
Very annoying.

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 12:05 PM
Nobody in books ever has head lice.
That alone is very, very odd.

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 12:12 PM
Authors who ignored researching the past properly when doing historical fiction include:
Shakespeare. He has clocks chiming in ancient Rome and all kinds of other very strange things.
Chaucer. In Troilus and Criseyde, somehow the Trojan war is being fought by knights in armor who have 'lady-loves'.
Tolstoy, on the other hand, did such an amazing job with War and Peace that people nowadays always assume he was contemporary, which he was not.
I am always amazed at how quickly people forget the details of the past. Even when there are people nowadays alive to ask. In my tv guide for this week, they were advertising a movie set in 1963 Birmingham. they showed a photo of the main actress on the tv guide and she was wearing earrings that no one, but no one wore in 1963, hair was very modern in the style.and she wasn't wearing a hat as you would have with the dress she was wearing (nor gloves), and dress was no way from 1963, either. More 50's looking, except with pleats all down the bodice that just aren't right. In a very contemporary green color.
I notice things like that very much. I'm picky. Won't be watching that movie.

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 12:14 PM
Another bete noire: In historical novels, people always manage to be on the scene for what we now consider the important events.
i hate to inform younger people, but I was not at Woodstock and neither was anyone else I knew. Read about it in the papers and paid no attention--it was jsut somewhere where hippies (I knew no hippies) were hanging out, seemed to have absolutely no relevance.
Neither did I ever set foot in a disco.

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 12:16 PM
Favorite hair in a novel, in one of Rosemary's Sutcliffe's excellent historical novels about Roman Britain, Dawn Wind, the main character has a sister whose hair gives off sparks when she brushes it. the sister is a very minor character, soon kidnapped by barbarians and disappeared from the papers until the end.
I always wondered if this was really possible.

sandigrl117
September 20th, 2013, 12:31 PM
I recall some teenage horror book where the main character had hair that would "break brushes." Go figure.

Reading that reminded me of the movie The Princess Diaries when they were giving Mia a makeover and her "thick hair... like a wolf" breaks the brush. :rollin: Totally made my morning.

Katrine
September 20th, 2013, 12:45 PM
I think the story of Samson in the Bible, which took place during the time of the Judges (Judges 13 - 16) is fascinating in relation to his hair. And of course to human nature. His hair was symbolic to him, his God-given strength was in his hair.

Panth
September 20th, 2013, 01:10 PM
Favorite hair in a novel, in one of Rosemary's Sutcliffe's excellent historical novels about Roman Britain, Dawn Wind, the main character has a sister whose hair gives off sparks when she brushes it. the sister is a very minor character, soon kidnapped by barbarians and disappeared from the papers until the end.
I always wondered if this was really possible.

Yup, totally possible. My hair used to do this on crisp and frosty winter mornings when I'd "angry brush" through my braidwaves with one of those ball-tipped-bristle brushes. I'd get enough static to make my hair stand out from my body (despite it being about TBL) and with each brushstroke might get enough static to see sparks.

Now I don't let my hair get so dry, use products that reduce static and don't brush, so I haven't seen the effect in quite some time...

Sarahlabyrinth
September 20th, 2013, 01:31 PM
In historical movies it always amazes me that the nobility always have such perfect teeth.....And that the women so often wear their hair loose and uncovered. Which would have certainly been a no-no at the time.

HintOfMint
September 20th, 2013, 01:44 PM
I'd like to read the one where a woman breaks brushes with her hair.

Haha, I believe it was called Remember Me by Christopher Pike.

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 01:45 PM
Women in historical movies not only have their hair uncovered, which was immodest, but they show amazing amounts of boobage in uplift bras all the time. There are FEW periods in history when even prostitutes showed that much bazoom. But the rule seems to be, if the legs are covered, you have to make up for it by exposing the other end as much as possible. this is also true on romance novel covers.
the regency period was unusual (empire in France), ladies quite often had short haircuts (!!!!) exposed hair and not only showed the bosom (in t he evening of course) but damped their thin muslin dresses so that they were completely see through.
Napoleon put a stop to this at his court pretty quickly. the story is that he had them make roaringly hot uncomfortable fires and stated loudly that this was necessary because all the ladies must be so cold. they took the hint and started wearing more.
As usual, where things make drastic swings, went from that to the 1820's and 30's where women got so extremely modest that you couldn't even see their faces when they went out, the front of the bonnet got so very large. and women were very covered, though the clothes are a little strange--huge ballooning sleeves but the skirt not very big, with the sort of bodice that comes down to a point on the waist, very low (regency/empire dresses were high waisted)..this made a semi comeback in the 1980's, especially for wedding and formal dresses
Fashion is fascinating.

Panth
September 20th, 2013, 02:03 PM
In historical movies it always amazes me that the nobility always have such perfect teeth.....And that the women so often wear their hair loose and uncovered. Which would have certainly been a no-no at the time.

Depending on the era, good teeth (or at least worn but rot-free teeth) were the norm due to the lack of sugar.

However, the uncovered hair thing. *gah* YES!

There are a million and one things I could rant about regarding people's misconceptions of medieval history. However, I tend to avoid those sort of books/films/TV programmes for the sake of my blood pressure...

woodswanderer
September 20th, 2013, 03:03 PM
I do get headaches sometimes when my hair is up if I don't have "the load" balanced right. I think this is because I have always had long hair since I was a child, and my ends are very blunt, and overall, my hair is kinda thick, though not as much as when I was younger. It still adds up to a lot of weight for me. Maybe I just need to figure out better buns to keep it balanced. I usually go for infinity, lazy wrap, or cinnamon, all with 2 sticks.

I enjoyed all the hair descriptions from Little Women, and cringed at the hair mishaps, although I don't remember if it was filled with inaccuracies or not.

emilyann
September 20th, 2013, 03:21 PM
I looooved Anne of Green Gables. I wanted pretty red curls so badly my entire childhood because of her.

velorutionista
September 20th, 2013, 03:23 PM
Ooh I had those red curls and hated them with a vengeance! Funny how that works!

I remember it being a BIG DEAL in Anne of Green Gables when the girls were finally allowed to wear their hair up. So I think that was pretty accurate?

Carolyn
September 20th, 2013, 03:36 PM
Just an FYI, LHC's own Jessica Trapp writes historical fiction and she portrays her heroine's hair beautifully. I enjoy her books a lot.

vendethiel
September 20th, 2013, 03:36 PM
@ chen bao jun - Thank you for all of your posts! I love that I am not the only one who notices this!!! I read this book that was raved about for being historically accurate and it completely wasn't and it drove me crazy. So, I posted a review saying, not historically accurate, just be aware and I got a lot of hate comments. People informed me that it was not necessary for historical book to actually be...historical. Yeah.
Why is it so hard for people to do research? And why is it so necessary for every character to be a modern person trapped in the past? Why can't we just have a regular past person in the past? And why can't they seem realistic, including their hair? I don't know how many times I've read books where the heroine doesn't wear her hair up or wear a bonnet or anything! I don't understand.


@ Sarahlabyrinth - The lack of proper hairstyles and head coverings in historical movies really bothers me. And I don't really understand the necessity of it. A lot of historical hairstyles are very lovely and bonnets and hats (at the very least) are an interesting change.

vendethiel
September 20th, 2013, 03:44 PM
My hair crawls out of braids. I don't know how else to describe it. Doesn't matter how I braid it or tie it off, after a few hours, it looks like it's very, very slowly exploding, because little strands all over have just...crawled out. It actually unbraids itself. Not frizz either.

All the shorter hairs start slipping out of my braid after a few hours, so I refer to it as my braid becoming fuzzy. The braid is still actually in the hair, but the shorter hairs have slipped out of it, making it look really, really fuzzy and unkempt. The book I read talked about the hair actually unbraiding itself from the top of the braid to the bottom. As though she started with a full braid, at the middle of the day only the bottom part of her hair was in a braid, and at the end of the day none of her hair was in the braid. Which didn't seem very realistic to me...

Night_Kitten
September 20th, 2013, 03:58 PM
All the shorter hairs start slipping out of my braid after a few hours, so I refer to it as my braid becoming fuzzy. The braid is still actually in the hair, but the shorter hairs have slipped out of it, making it look really, really fuzzy and unkempt. The book I read talked about the hair actually unbraiding itself from the top of the braid to the bottom. As though she started with a full braid, at the middle of the day only the bottom part of her hair was in a braid, and at the end of the day none of her hair was in the braid. Which didn't seem very realistic to me...

That does seem strange... It could be realistic if the hair unbraided from the bottom because she didn't bother tying it off after braiding or she used silk ribbons that slipped off, but hair unbraiding at the top while the bottom stays braided? Sounds weird to me... Only time I experienced anything similar was when I was learning to make a rope braid and twisted the pieces together in the wrong direction, but even then it unravelled itself all through the length of the braid, not just at the top, and it happened as soon as I let go of the braid, not over a period of time :shrug:

PrincessBob
September 20th, 2013, 05:10 PM
Well my hair used to break brushes. All. The. Time. I no longer use those types of brush. I used to have to buy a new paddle brush at least once or twice every year. My mom's Denman knock offs were absolutely shredded when I would borrow them as a kid. We used to shave part of my head to keep the thickness manageable. Of course I was uneducated on hair care.

I *couldn't* get a comb through my hair, until just a couple years ago when I got my Hair Sense Super Detangling rake. My hair will eat away at any and all paint or enamel on a metal hair accessory. No explanation, no known reason. Just fact.

My hair will still give me headaches if I try to wear it too high. Bobby pins still give me headaches. Until i had been using "hair toys" for many, many months, I would pout as my hair undid itself from any updo I tried. Currently I still have random days (usually following a coney conditioner wash) when I have to re-do my hair frequently because of shifting and tugging, but I have a tender scalp, so that is to be expected.

I have really terrible braid shred, it can look like my hair has come unbraided from a distance. My kids when I have them will be taught gentle hair care and have Tangle Teezers available to them, so they probably won't have to deal with it.

I'm not saying that the authors aren't at least a little ignorant, but so are many folks out there, including my pre-lhc self. To those who have never experienced these problems, or been told how to avoid them, it may come across as asinine, but they really can and do happen to some of us.

Nique1202
September 20th, 2013, 06:16 PM
Nobody in books ever has head lice.
That alone is very, very odd.

In the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce, there's a child who's introduced as basically an indentured servant for a cruel person, and the protagonist who frees him specifically thinks about using a special soap to get rid of the lice he's carrying. It's never mentioned again, but I thought it was a neat reference!

As for the topic at hand, one of the most interesting series that mentions hair in it that I've read is the Wheel of Time series of books. The town that the main characters are mostly from has a tradition of girls wearing their hair loose until they're considered 'adult', then they're allowed to braid it into a single, presumably english-style braid. One of the girls flirts with the guy she expects to marry, saying that the Women's Circle have said she's old enough to braid her hair (that they can be engaged soon). Later they come across another culture where braiding hair in twin braids is for children and the adults wear theirs loose, which causes a bit of culture shock.

One of the other main characters has frustration issues and a mental block about using her magical abilities except when she's really upset, so not only is she frequently described as tugging on her braid out of frustration (ouch!) but she does it deliberately at times to upset herself with the pain so that she can use magic to get out of sticky situations. I can't imagine how her scalp would feel, though!

Vrindi
September 20th, 2013, 06:19 PM
All the shorter hairs start slipping out of my braid after a few hours, so I refer to it as my braid becoming fuzzy. The braid is still actually in the hair, but the shorter hairs have slipped out of it, making it look really, really fuzzy and unkempt. The book I read talked about the hair actually unbraiding itself from the top of the braid to the bottom. As though she started with a full braid, at the middle of the day only the bottom part of her hair was in a braid, and at the end of the day none of her hair was in the braid. Which didn't seem very realistic to me...

Yeah, mine does this. It spits out the tie at the bottom if it's there long enough, and it starts unraveling from the top down. Not just fuzzies, those happen too, but the braid actually undoes itself from the top down, getting looser and looser, and then out goes the hair tie. I'm serious, it can crawl out of a braid. I'm not saying it isn't weird though, because it is...weird.

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 08:39 PM
When my hair is in its naturally curly state braids hold without even being secured on the ends. Like, forever. I actually have trouble undoing them as my hair clings to itself. This is not damage. it just does this.
However, when my hair is straightened, as in flat ironed or chemically straightened (I haven't had that for 13 years but I've been flat ironed more recently) my braids do undo themselves. What happens is, if I don't have a hair tie securing the top, it loosens itself and the braid starts drooping and gradually just comes out and its not from the bottom (i have taper so that the bottom tends to stay done). the top just kind of droops itself out, if that makes any sense.
But its slow and its not dramatic at all. It just looks--messy.
I do hate my hair straightened. I really have no idea how to manage it then (though its been straightened for a lot of my life).

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 08:42 PM
Yeah, mine does this. It spits out the tie at the bottom if it's there long enough, and it starts unraveling from the top down. Not just fuzzies, those happen too, but the braid actually undoes itself from the top down, getting looser and looser, and then out goes the hair tie. I'm serious, it can crawl out of a braid. I'm not saying it isn't weird though, because it is...weird.

I guess Vrindi and I doubleposted. this is a good description of what happens to my straightened hair, better than mine was. Except the tie at the bottom doesn't get spit out (i do need a hairtie if its straightened. ) So it will still be secured on the end and the top loosened out. But again, this is not a problem I have when my hair is in its naturally curly state.
Vrindi, is this happening with your hair natural or altered in some way?

chen bao jun
September 20th, 2013, 08:54 PM
I hear you, Princess Bob.
Reading your post I am grateful that my mom just went to straightening (horrible as that was, it was the old fashioned hot comb) instead of actually shaving part of my head.
I do not comb my hair anymore. I finger detangle.
My hair doesn't have any effect on paint or enamel though. That's perfectly safe from me.
Our hair does not have much in common so far as type, though. I am also iii coarse but I have nothing like 69 inches of hair nor am I anywhere close to 1c, 2a. I'm much more curly, 3c. I wonder if its the thickness and the coarseness?
My hair did not break combs and brushes anymore once straightened. But it kept eating hair toys for breakfast. The color stayed on them jsut fine but they busted sooner or later, usually sooner. I wore nothing but scrunchies for years as I had no knowledge of hair sticks, ficcares amish pins or the other nice LHC suggestions for hair.
My hair is so coarse that I saw some sewing thread in the sink the other day, without my glasses on and I assumed it was a strand of hair. the size was so similar. Is this what's death to hair things, rather than combination of coarseness and curliness I wonder? Most of the curlies I know have extremely fine hair, the opposite of coarse even when they have some density. Most of them are of African descent. they can't use narrow combs because of discomfort or hair breakage, but their hair does not snap the comb in half, as mine does. I stand open to correction if there is someone here who has fine and curly hair and has this problem.

Well my hair used to break brushes. All. The. Time. I no longer use those types of brush. I used to have to buy a new paddle brush at least once or twice every year. My mom's Denman knock offs were absolutely shredded when I would borrow them as a kid. We used to shave part of my head to keep the thickness manageable. Of course I was uneducated on hair care.

I *couldn't* get a comb through my hair, until just a couple years ago when I got my Hair Sense Super Detangling rake. My hair will eat away at any and all paint or enamel on a metal hair accessory. No explanation, no known reason. Just fact.

I'm not saying that the authors aren't at least a little ignorant, but so are many folks out there, including my pre-lhc self. To those who have never experienced these problems, or been told how to avoid them, it may come across as asinine, but they really can and do happen to some of us.

MeganE
September 20th, 2013, 08:59 PM
Nobody in books ever has head lice.
That alone is very, very odd.

Clan of the Cave Bear! Ayla has lice and Iza treats her for it. First or second chapter, I think?

I always thought it was weird how she could detangle her hair with a twig though.

spidermom
September 20th, 2013, 09:55 PM
I really don't think about things like this all that much. I'm there for the story, not the descriptions.

Sharysa
September 21st, 2013, 12:04 AM
Clan of the Cave Bear! Ayla has lice and Iza treats her for it. First or second chapter, I think?

I always thought it was weird how she could detangle her hair with a twig though.

Actually, it's a teasel pod. Prehistoric teasel pods probably look quite a little different, but generally they look like this:

http://www.virtual-swanage.co.uk/docs/2000/2003_455_teasel_seed_pod.jpg

As for the thread's subject, I personally get annoyed when people think that medieval/ancient times had WORSE hair than they actually did. Descriptions in mythology and history are LOADED with descriptions of hair grooming, washing, and styling, but bad writers think that everyone before the 1700s had frizzy, dirty mats (except, obviously, the Fantastically Attractive Lead Characters).

I'm not a published author yet, but I hope to be one and my historical fantasy tends to draw on the Pagan Celts, seeing as I follow the Irish pantheon myself.