Analyzing a strand of hair . . . from 6 years ago.

[SpeakingEZ]

So, my mother sent me my bedding from when I was in high school to use in my new apartment. And woven into one of the pillow shams was . . . a well-preserved hair. From when I was 17 years old.

If the hair was grown from my crown, if would have been waist length. If from the nape, if would have been hip at least.

It was DESTROYED. It was a goldenly color, red in places, meaning it was one of the hairs that got bleached highlighted red after I dyed my hair black.

It suffered awful mechanical damage. It was so dry, it was curling all over, randomly. (When I was 17, I just thought my hair was naturally curly.) Large areas of it looked stripped, as if they'd been stretched one too many times by a hairbrush, especially when wet. The end was surprisingly blunt, not split.

I wish I could say that the damage was the result of being packed away in the bedding for so many years, but I know that's not the case. I used to have a head full of hairs like these. Wow.

[pixiedust]

Yeah, I had hair from a little over a year ago that I pulled out of a brush, and it was bleached and coloured probably somewhere around 574534 times - white and dry and splintered in like 3 places - and only 10 inches long!

[julierockhead]

Funny - I have hair from when I was 17 or so ( I kept teeny tiny, looong braid from a haircut). It is my virgin hair, and it's so perfect lol! My hair used to be a natural honey-strawberry blonde with sunstreaks, the kind of hair people pay lots of money to get with nasty chemicals. Just the slightest wave. And I hated it! It was the 80's so I tortured it with spiral perms and sun-in and backcombing and hairspray. *Sigh*. Now it's half grey, and the grey is all coarse and wavy and looks like frizz next to my almost straight hair.