Hypothetical situation: there's 100 French girls on the metro with me. Out of those 100 it's inevitable that 40 of them will have what I call 'club' hair, 40 will have 'coiffed hair' and the last 20 will have 'inbetween' hair. I don't understand the hair phenomenon here in Toulouse.
If you are French, and you are reading this...visit Toulouse and you'll see that I'm not exaggerating.
Now, I shall explain the phenomenon. I have classes at various times of the day throughout the week, so I get the pleasure of riding the metro at different times. No matter what time of day it is, I always notice that the hair phenomenon doesn't change.
There are young ladies who have 'club' hair. It's oddly scented, sometimes brightly colored in spots, and there's serious dishevelment going on. I'm not talking about intentional bed head or even regular bed head...it passes that level of unkemptness. These females look like they prepared their hair, went out dancing all night, got into a fight, had some 'relations', then stumbled onto the metro. Their hair is frizzy, knotted, half curled, sort of crimped, and matted ALL AT ONCE. I've known people trying to let dreadlock their hair before and these ladies are NOT in that situation...it's facinating to me to see these masterpieces of unkempt hair on girls who have fresh perfect makeup, sky high heels, and carry L.V. purses.... the complete package is wonderfully mismatched.
The second type of hair I see on girls my age is the 'coiffed' hair. These works of art are the stereotypical, modelesque configurations that seem like they took hours, or a trip to the salon, to achieve. Silky straight locks that would probably show you your own reflection if you got close enough. Perfectly spiraled bouncy curls. Wonderfully scented! Every hair is in place, usually around celebrity oversized sunglasses, and it seems that these girls could either be hiding a famous face or on the way to a photo shoot. Again what's odd to me is that these girls, some of which have the sleek outfit to match the high fashion hair, are mostly dressed in skinny jeans, boots, a pea-coat, and a scarf with a longchamp bag on one arm. Their hair says salon, their clothes say typical French girl. It's another, albeit less glaring, mismatch.
The third, and by far the tiniest, category is the inbetween hair a.k.a. the mix between coiffed and club hair. Some examples are oily and flat, with only the slightest vestiges of what must have been coiffed. The curl is still present in the ends, or in a few strands, and the hair still smells pretty good, but it's clear that it's time for a shower and some clarifying shampoo. From the other end of the spectrum we have the messy ponytail/bun crowd that has not only managed to make the ponytail-bun messy, but the hair pulled back toward the bun is knotted and frizzed and there are little fuzzies stuck to the hair that hasn't managed to escape the ponytail holder. These heads are also in need of a shower and some de-tangle spray.
I wish I could pull off one style or the other, but my hair remains typically American, whatever that is. It's either very clean and attempting to be straight via my straightener (which zaps the shine) OR it's dirty and the natural beach waves have devolved into lazy bedhead waves.
There's the saying, "If you can't beat them, join them." but I wonder what follows from "if you can't achieve the hair...." ????
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