Hey guys! I thought I'd do a fun post today about all the many ways I've worn my hair in my lifetime. And when I say many, I mean many. I recently had to have a hair makeover and when I was chatting with a friend about it she reminded me of just how many hairstyles I've had over the past few years.
So, let's go ahead and get started!
I had little to no hair until I was around 2 years old. When it finally did come in, it was white blonde, and super fine, but I had lots of it. It was wavy (you can kind of see a little curl developing there in the back) but not kinky at all.
On a side note, I just LOVE this picture of me and my Dad. I have no idea what we were doing, or getting ready to do, but here we are, sitting on the kitchen counter!
Then there was this look....
This was Easter morning. I got ANOTHER Barbie to add to my collection (I think this was like camping Barbie or something) and The Lion King on VHS. For a child like me, this haircut really worked. It was easy, wash and go, and it looked cute with a bow or a headband (my thing back then. I always wore a headband).
I finally had hair to my shoulders! This is a landmark in my lifetime. This picture was taken on my birthday... I'm thinking it was my 4th but I'm not sure. I'm posing between my two proud grandmothers! This was the year I got a matching brass baby doll bed to match my big girl brass bed. I was thrilled.
2nd grade, I had "the bob."
Complete with the uneven bangs that my Mom used to cut using masking tape as a guide.
Moving on down the line, I ended up with a perm in 4th grade.
A super kinky perm. This picture is hilarious because it was Christmas Eve with my Mom's family at our house, and, very typical of my Daddy, he's messing with me, getting ready to grab my nose. I chose this picture because you can really see just how kinky that kinky perm was! (No doubting that in my life, I was my Daddy's Girl!)
This was at my 11th birthday party. That hair... oh my... It was so kinky that I mostly wore it in a pony tail because unless I let it air dry it was a frizz ball mess. I kept the perm for a couple of years but as soon as 5th grade was over I had that perm taken out.
It DRAMATICALLY changed the texture of my hair. My hair went from fine, thick and wavy to COARSE, dry, thick and curly. Well, I say curly, but it's more like a tight wave. It doesn't actually "curl."
I hate this picture, but I'm sharing it with you because of my hair. This is how it looked after the perm was taken out. Before the perm if I'd let it air dry (like I did here, on this Sunday morning before church, for some reason) it would have been stick straight. After the perm it was all over the place. This picture is terrifying. But isn't my brother handsome and my niece adorable?
So I set out to find a style that worked, and eventually I learned how to straighten my hair. And wore it like this for a good little while.
I loved that blue shirt. Just loved it. And you can see that my hair is also darkening up too. It's not the white baby blonde that it used to be, but now a very dirty blonde, or brown/blonde.
I even did bangs. Badly. I badly did bangs... with a sunburned nose.
I started growing my hair out. I'd always wanted super long hair, and so I started the process when I was 13. By 14, this is what I had.
Rockin' them glasses. I've always been blinder than a bat. By this time my Dad had let me get some very natural highlights put in, and I had a great haircut. I was getting more and more interested in "beautification," like hair and makeup and etc, and was anxiously awaiting my 15th birthday when my parents promised me that I could get contacts!
I remember 15 being a turning point in my looks. Almost from the minute I got my contacts, I remember things changing. I lost some baby weight, I got more highlights, I got my first boyfriend! Puberty... gotta love it.
I felt "pretty" for the first time. I learned how to go with my natural hair texture and that became my signature look as a teenager.
My 16th birthday!
My birthday is in November and I LOVE bonfires... so much. So I decided I wanted to have a huge bonfire for my birthday party. So we did. Daddy and I cut wood for 6 straight months. It was a fantastic night that I will never forget. You can see just how long my hair had gotten at this point.
Senior Picture!
My Mom loves this picture of me and has it in 11x14 in black and white hanging in her hallway. When Aaron and I first met (I was just 18) he had this picture framed on his nightstand until we were married, and then even after we got married and moved into our house, he still kept it on his nightstand.
This is a terrible quality photo, but you can see how long it was when I straightened it.
But I usually always wore it like this.
Daddy was making me laugh. Shocker.
And sometimes I'd curl it with a curling iron. Mostly for special occasions, like Christmas Sunday.
What a sharp dressed man my Daddy was.
After he passed away, I cut it all off. There is some Native American blood on both sides of my family, and I'd always heard that the only time they would cut their hair is when they were in mourning. And boy was I mourning. So I chopped every bit of it off and dyed it brown.
This picture was too funny for me not to use. I was in photography school and I got to play model one afternoon.
In my time with Aaron my hair has changed SO much...
Almost engaged (I'm wearing my big ol' promise ring.)
Newly Engaged. And pretty darn happy about it. (July 2008)
SUPER DUPER blonde. Aaron loved it but I felt like it was too much. (Jan. 2009)
I got some low-lights put in. (I love this shot that my friend, Ally, took of me one afternoon in Nashville when we were on assignment.)
And then came the great chop of Summer 2009.
Now... I truly LOVED this haircut, and when the time comes for me to go short again I will probably want to go back to this very same cut, because I liked it that much. It was super easy to take care of, a quick wash and maybe 5 minutes to blow dry (as opposed to the 45 minutes it had taken me when my hair was long and curly) and then basically just smoothing down the ends with a flat iron. It was so easy. And so versatile!
Even in a huge gust of wind!
It started growing out, and it still looked super cute!
But as our wedding day was fast approaching I wanted something a bit more "wifey." So I went to a hair stylist friend and asked her for a new "wifey 'do" and she delivered this!
This cut and color combo was a HUGE hit amongst my friends. It was fun to wear and fun to style!
This was at one of our wedding showers. It was just too cute!
This hairstyle carried me through the long nights and long days of school and home renovation.
But because of the white blonde chunky highlights, I wanted to tone it down a bit for my wedding, and make things a bit more natural.
This was Thanksgiving 2009. We were set to walk down the isle in 15 days! (I'm proud to say that this shirt still fits. The pants? No way, but the shirt, yes! :)
And here I am on my wedding day!
How gorgeous was my updo??
And on our honeymoon I played with hairstyles.
I wore it up.
I wore it down. (I even kissed Charlie Chaplin!)
I wore it curly.
I even wore it half up out to dinner one night!
Then we came home and life took over.
My 21st birthday!
My first biological nephew. I have 4 nephews on Aaron's side, but this one is my brothers little baby boy... who is gonna be 4 in a few months. WHAAAA?
Back to Blonde.
Aaron prefers me as a blonde. I was a blonde when we got engaged (not when we met) but it's what he says he thinks of when he "pulls up a picture of me in his brain."
2011 was an awful year for me. I was sick the entire month of December. And I mean siiiiiiiick. I was running a fever on Christmas morning. It was NOT fun.
In 2012 I started a new job and wanted a new polished look to go along with it.
So again, the great chop.
And then I chopped on it a little more, and got more highlights.
I had this hairstyle on stage for a play, teased up in true 1980's form.
Here I am with my 3 co-stars. (My character was pregnant.)
After that I had some lowlights put in to give me a little dimension.
I loved it.
And then I was tired of blonde. So this happened.
I kept it this color while I was growing it out. I wanted my long hair back. Long hair has always been the goal. It's always been what I was headed for. I liked all my short haircuts but there wasn't a single one of them that made me feel more "me" than when I had long hair.
Easter Sunday 2013.
Melting on our cruise in October 2013.
Date Night! August 2014.
Random Kitchen Selfie - September 2014.
But I find myself revisiting an old character on stage that is quite famously a blonde. So I needed to get me some highlights. An all-over bleach would have probably yanked my hair out by the roots because my hair is so dry and damaged. So my stylist and I decided that a super heavy highlight was in order.
This was the finished product.
I was headed home from the salon and snapped this in-the-car selfie to send to my Mom. I never like the way a stylist styles my hair so I went home and re-styled it before rehearsal.
Yesterday, when I was doing my hair, it all blended together much more evenly and looks way more blonde now. I truly love it. I don't even look like the me of today. I look like the me of 2006! And I like that. Aaron loves it. My Mom loves it. My co-stars love it. It IS very, VERY dry, so I'm constantly lathering it up in moroccan oil and coconut oil... anything to give it a little moisture.
So that's my hair journey from birth till now. Can you believe I changed my hair so many times? How many times have you changed your hair? Are you a short hair person or a long hair person? Tell me all about your hair journey in the comments below!
Thanks for taking this walk down memory lane with me!
