Hair
Public, Political, Extremely Personal
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Cut it, color it, perm it, shave it, braid it, wax it, highlight it, mousse it, gel it, brush it and brush it and brush it...
What don't we do to our hair?
Diane Simon is fascinated by people's relationship with their hair because it is both very personal one and very public. She recognizes that so much of who we are is reflected in our relationship with our hair.
Diane is the curly-haired daughter of straight haired parents and has suffered much for her "bad hair". In researching and writing Hair: Public, Political, Extremely Personal she has used her suffering as a point of entry, a common ground to share with those who think of themselves as excluded from Western beauty norms because of their hair.
In Hair: Public, Political, Extremely Personal, social and cultural issues form the backdrop for an exploration of the choices people make to transform themselves through their hair. Hair is a cultural investigation with a strong narrative momentum and a commitment to individual personalities. Join Diane on her visits to Harlem braiding salons and Hassidic wig shops, and in her quest to try every type of hair removal. Spend an afternoon with Sy Sperling at the Hair Club for Men headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida, and find out the truth about some celebrity scalps. Hair: Public, Political, Extremely Personal is candid, humorous, serious, and surprisingly revealing.
Cut It, Curl It, Weave It, Bleach It, Condition It, Implant It, Blowdry It, Spray It, Tint It, Comb It, Rat It, Bob It, Perm It, Braid It, Coif It, Gel It, Wig It, Fake It, Knot It, Pull It, Dye It, Highlight It, Wave It, Shampoo It, Straighten It, Pluck It, Color It, Wax It, Clip It, Shave It, Thread It, Mousse It, Depilitorize It, Tweeze It, Hide It, Laser It, Tease It, Trim It, Chop It, Wash It, Dry It, Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It And Brush It
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A longtime sufferer of "low hair esteem," which she blames on her "frizzy" locks, Simon sets out to uncover the complex forces that have shaped the nation's relationship to hair. According to Simon, the "hippie hair" that caught the country's attention in the 1960s was a revolt not only against the status quo, represented by the hardened, false perfection of the bouffant, but also against the longstanding precedent of Judeo-Christian culture, established with Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, in which he sets out the "righteous" norm for hair--short for men and long for women. Simon moves on to consider a rather dizzying array of hair-related history, including Roman depilatory practices in the days of Caesar, the ways in which traditional African hairdressing techniques were preserved and altered during slavery and rabbinical interpretations of the Talmudic dictums on covering the hair. While Simon displays a journalist's eye for detail as she leads us through Harlem braiding salons and Brooklyn wig shops, when it comes to figuring out what all the hair fuss is about, she often comes up short. (After a long section on the difficulties that male cross-dressers face in passing as women, she decides that "Guys dressed like girls are not, after all, girls.") Strands of hair aren't quite enough to hold all this burgeoning information together; in the end, Simon seems bewildered as she remarks, "I have written this book, my hair is getting longer... I'm not sure what happens next." It's a dissatisfying close to what turns out to be, despite its fun sociological tidbits, a thin treatment.