Article

[SimplyDashing]

Thought y'all might find this article interesting.

Notice it says women cut their hair shorter cause it costs less in hair care products...mmm'ya.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Ha...886/story.html

[nicolina]

I would have thought any short-term saving in product use would be offset by the short-term cost of getting it cut.

[sweet*things]

Ridiculous. Women with short hair tend to use all sorts of mousses and gels and pomades, etc. to get their styles to behave. Short hair requires two to three times the amount of product as long hair, in my experience.

Also I use the same amount of shampoo whether I have short or long hair, because I have the same amount of scalp. I do use more conditioner, but only a little more. Any alleged savings in product costs would be immediately eaten up by increased trips to the hairdresser for cuts to stay short.

They could make a case that in times of economic hardship more women wish to appear "serious" and "business-like", but in my opinion there's nothing more businesslike than a bun. I've worked the scary librarian vibe to my advantage in an office more than once.

[enfys]

Isn't it more related to the celebrities haircuts that they're copying? Since they refer to them so often in the article, and I'm guessing they didn't cut their hair due to being short on cash...

[marzipanthecat]

Interesting. This reminds me of light-hearted and humourous (but it did have a point) article I read many years ago (it was in the days before the internet), where the writer was talking about a recession resulting in women's hair being cut shorter, and hemlines going up. I seem to recall the person was citing the Great Depression (1930s) and then the 1970s, and this article was written during the 1980s (there was a big rise in unemployment in the UK at that time). Mind you, I still think getting hair cut short is a fashion choice more than anything else.

I certainly spend a lot less on hair products than any of my friends with short hair. I don't use gel or hairspray or hair clay or whatever. I don't pay for regular haircuts!

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[nowxisxforever]

Probably a lot of their impression of short hair being less maintenance and less expensive is that they're assuming that long hair is either extensions or the entirety of the length is treated the same as someone with short hair. So for example, where we might use a small amount of shampoo on our scalps, "standard" hair care suggests using shampoo on the *entire* length, which then requires excessive conditioning and product to cover up the dryness, and it takes longer to blow-dry, straighten, curl, more expensive to bleach, dye, perm-- not everyone with "long" hair treat their hair as we tend to.

So if you're taking that at absolute face value, assuming the short and long hair is treated the same, yes, it's cheaper for the short hair-- just by virtue of the necessity for more product with longer hair whilst practicing "standard" care.

For us? We're probably the most thrifty hair-owners of our time, short of folk who buzz their own hair and use WO. Minusing hairtoys and experiments, of course

[Beatnik Guy]

and this article was written during the 1980s

Princess Di effect maybe?

[talervo]

The first thing I thought of was the flappers. So maybe it's not really a recession thing, it's an independence thing. The short hair from the depression era came out of the flappers fashion of the 20's, not because it was cheaper to have short hair.

They did mention short hair being more "man-like" in the article. There was a recent fashion trend for girlie-girl. Maybe it's swinging towards macho-girl? (hee, hee) The 80's clothes were supposedly coming back, right?

Maybe Britney Spears was just ahead of her time?

[teela1978]

To me the article is talking more about how during a stressful situation, women tend to chop off their hair. The recession is stressful to many many people, so therefore lots of hair probably is being chopped off, not for monetary reasons, but more for 'I can't control much, but I can control my hair' reasons... I know I've been there before.