So, about a year ago, my parents moved from their old house to their new one and my mom found some old pics of me and my sisters that she turned over to us. I’m about to reveal to y’all what was probably the worst hair of my life. The year was 1988. After having had a relaxer for about 3 years, I decided I wanted to wear my hair wavy as I could never get/keep it straight anyway. I wasn’t feeling the Jheri Curl, but the Wave Nouveau had just been introduced! YES! That’s the look I wanted! I dreamed of looking like this!!
Instead, I looked like this.
(I’ve come a loooooong way baby!!)
LMBO!! Told you. See a salon stylist, a so-called “professional,” thought it was fine to apply this curly chemical process over a relaxer. And … my hair proceeded to break horribly. Eventually, in my senior year of HS, I got my first totally short haircut ever to eliminate the remnants of the damage.
That was my worst hair year ever and was probably the worst thing that I ever did to my hair. So, the question of the day is:
What is the worst thing that you’ve ever done to your hair?
hairscapades 
you know i love you but … umm, “Wave Nouveau” … whatever! a curl is a curl!!! but you still get 5 stars for having the courage to post that picture!
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Waaaaave Nouuuuuuveau! Say it with me! There is no J or C in that! *lol*
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I’m LMBO along with you girl. Sorry.
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I like your graduation picture. I think we are very hard on ourselves as young women. And I remember hearing stylists insist it was OK to apply Wave Nouveau over relaxers….chemistry was apparently not an extensive component of cosmetology training 🙂
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And sadly, it seems it still isn’t Renea! Okay, so it wasn’t just me either, eh? Crazy! And that picture was in my freshman year FB at Princeton! I lost that thing though!
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LMAO!!!
The worst I’ve ever done was:
1. Use a crimping iron on my hair. This was 1992 when they were still somewhat in style. The heat damage from using it broke my hair off badly.
3. Highlights circa 1994. My hair was cute, but it was way too damaging for my medium/fine strands in the long run.
Thankfully I never relaxed my hair though I begged my mother to have it done for years.
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Carla … was #2 so bad that you couldn’t even tell us?! JK!! LOL!! Yeah, I had highlights a few times. First on relaxed hair … they didn’t take well and damaged my hair. Then, I thought I’d try them on my natural hair thinking that my hair would be able to withstand them better. Not so. However, I will say this, I didn’t deep condition regularly then. Maybe if I had, it would have helped. But, I’ll never know as I don’t need to highlight given all the grey hair in my head now and the way henna turns it into my fiery red streaks:)!
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LOL! Oops. I didn’t use protein at the time – didn’t know what that was. I’m sure regular protein treatments would have helped a lot when I was highlighting.
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That pic is priceless! The worst I ever did was prob the relaxer….it used to burn so bad every single time even if I didn’t scratch and I would always always always have a scan whether it was big or small. The worst ever….oh I would cut my own bangs all the time. One time I cut it in a rush before school and ended up with uneven bangs that my mom fixed by cutting an even bigger bang….lol! What a mess growing up was….!
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That is one thing I never did, burn my scalp with relaxer. I’ve never had a sensitive scalp and almost all of my relaxers were done at home. The few that were done at salons I had washed when they started to burn. I wasn’t having that! As to the bangs, I’ve cut mine a couple of times, but I was always very timid. However, I cut a big ol’ chunk out of my sister’s hair when we were little. I lost a tooth the same day (I was about 6 or 7) … and, I didn’t get any money for it because of the scissors incident.
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Shelli…I love you and I think you’re gorgeous. BUT, with that being so, that picture is definitely the worst. I just.can’t.stop.laughing. You look SO happy! lololol
I think it’s even funnier because I had glasses like that…they were blue.
That was indeed courageous!
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English Prof!!! OMGosh, I didn’t know that you visit the site:)!! Thank you for defending my honor on CN;)!! You had me cracking up at the, “You look SO happy!” LMBO!!! I am a big, cheesy nerd! I always smile and that’s why it’s funny that most of my pics on here are of me with a serious face! I just can’t take a pic of myself with a natural smile …. it looks forced, so I always mean mug it;)! I have a pic of me as a little girl crying on here somewhere. I posted it on FB a while back and a friend of mine said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not smiling!” So, the smile is always with me, no matter how crazy or dorky that I look;)!! LOL!!
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Yes, I visit everyday and you’re welcome. I really dislike it when people get all nitpicky and negative on forums (esp. when they’re wrong)…it’s supposed to be fun!
Anyhow, I can’t force a natural smile either so I know what you mean. I look CRAZY in pictures, for real, that’s why I applaud your bravery. lol
I hope you have a great Christmas!
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Ditto on the, “It’s supposed to be fun!” I still have to work on not letting things like that get to me. I always try to respond diplomatically … but I have been heated by comments that I felt were negative a couple of times. However, I do often feel like the best defense is silence. I just haven’t perfected that defense yet;).
Thank you so much and I hope that you had a great Christmas too!!
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LOLOLOL You are brave! You had that same big smile though.
Lord, tell your mother those glasses……..LOL!
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My mom didn’t chose those glasses … I did!! LOL!! Shoot, Gazelle’s were in back then! They weren’t Gazelle’s, but I figured they were big like them, so they had to be cool, right?!?! LMBO!!! Oh, and of course, we had to choose off of the $25 table, so there weren’t many options!!
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My sister and I was always scissor happy. One time we shaved the sides of our head like Lisa Lisa. I would have to say the worst thing I every did was get a Salt-n-Pepa haircut. My hair length has never caught up to itself since then.
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Yeah, I wanted all of those styles but never had the guts or coolness to rock any of them!!
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OMG – I remember that ad! Talk about photoshop! Iman’s body in the ad looks so twisted. Girlfriend doesn’t even have a waist in that crazy ass photo. It is so amazing how influential the media can be. You couldn’t tell me that I couldn’t get my hair like Louise or Beverly Johnson. You are one of the bravest bloggers I know. Your picture is priceless because you look so happy! The worst thing I did was hotcombing my hair within an inch of its life. I could hear the hotcomb frying the ends of my hair and I would keep on pressing the life out of my hair anyway. It’s a wonder I didn’t go bald. I cringe at all of the crazy styles and torture utensils I put in my head. You live and learn.
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LOL! Everyone is commenting on the smile … well, that’s good, I think! LOL!!! You know, I’m really a person who would always show people my “before” pic. I know a lot of people hide them, but I just find them hilarious!! LOL!! I also figure there might be some young girl who feels like she’s an ugly duckling and that she’ll never be considered attractive and that maybe this will give her hope. Have you ever seen that movie Shallow Hal? Heard of Ugly Ducking syndrome? I always say that I have that. I mean, I never thought that I was ugly, but I did feel that no one found me attractive or saw that I could be pretty. So, as I got older, I learned how to polish myself up. But I never assume that someone finds me attractive or thinks I’m pretty. However, I don’t need everyone to believe that I’m pretty for me to feel that way about myself …. my esteem is not based upon what everyone thinks of me. It’s only based upon how I feel about myself and I surround myself with friends, family and loved ones who see the beauty this is inside as well as outside. There is nothing I like less than someone who only comments on my external appearance and doesn’t seem to see or even care about the person who is inside. Wow, this wasn’t supposed to get deep! But, again, hoping that this type of “reveal” might help some young lady who was just like me … or maybe wasn’t, and needs a little inspiration:)!!
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I desided I would perm my own hair one day when I was a teenager, I applied the perm to my hair and my friend called. We talk for an hour. So guess what happen? And that was the same week my year book pictures were taken. 😦
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Oh woooowwww Z!!! Now THAT is rough!! What did you do?!?!
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Having just learnt that in order to maintain long healthy hair regular trims were required. It startled me as I’d never really had a trim. Feeling that this was the reason that my hair wasn’t growing I began to chop off what I though was an inch off the end of the twists. It was only until I was halfway through and stating to question myself that I checked some of the hair i’d cut, stretching it to find that, that one inch i had been cutting of was in fact two inches some even three or four. So feeling a little less sure of myself i continued to snip, lest i end up with an uneven head.
So the moral of the story is NO emotional cutting, or cutting on a whim, sadly i shall have to rock my hair shorter that little bit longer, but at least now i understand the true extent of my shrinkage
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Hi Leah … Ooooh goodness!! Yeah, you don’t want to get scissor happy if you goal is to gain length:). But, you do want to ensure that your ends are intact and “healthy” in order to reduce the possibility of breakage and what I call “collateral damage” (splits and knots on one strand causing damage to adjacent undamaged strands due to snagging). I have been doing search and destroys since February, but think I will probably do a full on trim at the end of January 2012 after I remove these twists. The thing is, I’m very interested in seeing if I can prove Chicoro’s Lead Hair Theory on my own hair by seeing if the bulk of my hair will fill into the thinner longest layer. So, I’m not planning on an even cut if my longest length appears relatively healthy (split and knot free). We’ll see!
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Oh, mine was the reverse. I had the most gorgeous Wave Nouveau back in the day. People thought it was my natural hair and it was half way down my back. I got tired of it and wanted straight hair.
A family friend, who was a garage beautician, put a perm on top of my WN! Guess what? My hair was a pitiful mess within a month AND i did this my senior year of highschool. I will not even post those pictures because I’m not that brave, but it was the most saddest year of highschool. People constantly coming up saying ‘What happened to your hair?’
But we live and learn.
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Hi Nessia!! Really?!?!?! I don’t think I knew one person with a nice Wave Nouveau!! OMG … isn’t that crazy?!?! What the heck was going on in the 80s that “professionals” thought it was okay to do these processes over each other?!?! It’s a wonder that any of us have any hair!! I think that’s another experience that totally soured me on salons. I’ve never really gone much more than twice a year and often, it was far less than that! It was rarely an enjoyable experience, though I have had about four beauticians that I trusted with my hair. Three were really great in every way … one was an absolutely amazing beautician, but I would enter the salon around noon and wouldn’t leave until eight at night …. for a trim …. no style. I’d leave with a bush that I’d have to wet to style when I got home. I’d be livid. Wait … what were we talking about;)?!?! LOL!!
Anywho, you are right … live and learn! And, I learned that the “experts” are sometimes only experts in their own minds;). Though, I must admit, it often seems to be at no fault of their own … but that of their educational institutions. Like, seriously, what century is it and how readily accessible is information? How are these beauticians not educated about the science of hair and hair care?
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Girl those glasses!!!! You gonna make me spit out my juice. I have to say I don’t have any ‘no-no’ moments when it comes to my hair. I think in general we look back and wonder why we thought we were cute with the giant hair. I mean the 80s were the epitome of big hair but I pretty much kept it trendy. In high school I went through my Prince phase wearing it long and curly. By senior year I thought I was the lead singer of Klymaxx and had my hair cut just like it. Fierce!!!
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I did the worst things to my hair and thankfully it never fell off like it should’ve.
1. when i was 14 i decided i wanted blonde highlights on my sides, front and back… so… I bought some hair bleach, peroxide and bleached my hair almost white. Of course I was a child so when my mother saw that she gave me a beating and my neighbor told me to buy black hair dye to color my hair. I looked awful…
2.That same year I decided I wanted a bob and I went to a beautician who gave me the shortest bob in history, it barely covered my ears… Now, I have curly, thin hair… Imagine that mess…
3. At 15 or 16 I still wanted to be blonde but they wouldn’t allow it at school, so I would spary my hair with medical peroxide and walk in the sun so it would get lighter… It worked! LOL
4. At 19 I cut all my hair off like Halle Bery, or at least thats what I told myself… I did it on my own, it came out fine… not perfect but I rocked it, so I wanted it red… I wanted a red that, at the time, wasnt available in hair dyes, so I got red hair color and I mixed it with cool-aid and a medicine called mercurochrome (it’s red)… I ended up having Ronald McDonald red hair… It looked hot cause it was short, but the color would run down my face and neck.
OMG, I have many more stories, but I really need to get back to working… I have to say, now i’m turning 32 and I use organic product and color my natural hair with Henna, I stull cut it myself but I no longer experiment with my hair, I did enough of that in my early years… Thankfully, thare’s no photographic evidence! YAY
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