Cutting costs: the ongoing expense of keeping a hairstyle

Hair is an ongoing expense in most people’s lives. If you have it you need to take care of it and make it ever more beautiful, or at least maintain it. If you don’t have it, you often feel you need to compensate.  It’s a double-edged sword.

My tale starts in 1995, when I stopped earning lorry-loads of money in London, had my children, was forced into elasticated trousers, baggy shirts and grew my hair.

Hair pampering had always been one of my favourite treats and I loved changing it and messing around with it, or getting it done at the hairdressers. To a certain extent, having two girls briefly necessitated the need to play with hair (not mine!), fasten it up and around, out and up, put in bands, ribbons, scarves and clips. But it didn’t take them long to start objecting – my daughters could see the fun I was having at their expense.

Unfortunately, it’s really expensive to keep short hair and I no longer could justify the cost.  It needed doing every four weeks or so – adding well over £150 to my monthly outgoings – and then there’s the time it took.  It’s even more difficult to find that time when you have two little people to factor into the event.  So that’s why I decided to let it grow.

It’s really expensive to keep short hair and I no longer could justify the cost.

I was pleased with that until the greys started to creep in and the hair got thinner.  My mother was a great comfort saying ‘oh don’t let that worry you – your grandmother was nearly bald by the time she was 50!’ Thanks a lot mum! OMG, what a lot to look forward to!  Incidentally, this is my grandmother in about 1930, aged around 25.

So, while I thought I’d put in place a cunning plan to reduce my outgoings on coiffuring, the hair had other ideas.

In fact, these days I probably spend just as much money on product to enhance growth and volumise the pile. And then there’s the colour to get it like this.

But the cost of dyes and what-have-you all add up.

Luckily, I have a fab hairdresser at the top of my road who is very reasonably priced compared with the ladies in chrome-laden glamour pits in the middle of town who have the most unflattering mirrors it’s possible to imagine. But the cost of dyes and what-have-you all add up.

What vain creatures we are – love it! So much so, in fact, that the topic of hair seems to be there or thereabouts almost constantly.

Would you like a hair story from recently? My sister looked at me, running her fingers through her thick grey hair, and declared ‘well, I guess you didn’t inherit the family hair genes!’

Since that comment I have thought of 102 witty responses I could have made back to her on the subject of genetic inheritance the way you do with your siblings, but I managed to stop myself.

Anne Hutchison

Mouthy Blogger

York-based artist. Of the baby boomer gen, loves yoga and hates overpriced travel. Freelancer with a lust for life.