Manic Monday: Good (and bad) hairstyles for busy moms

Every Monday I'll be posting about fitness, fashion, and grooming for women with no time to be bothered with such things.  Today I'm going to start off by talking about your hair.  The beauty of the Internet is that I can talk to you about how to have pretty hair while mine looks like a bird nested in it sometime last week.  Do as I say, not as I do...

So let me take you through a few styles I've tried over the years.  Most stemmed from a celebrity inspiration (a photo of great hair I saw somewhere, and I had an "OK, just this one more time, I'll try something totally wrong for my hair-type and bet that it's going to work out" moment).  I'll share my blunders and successes with you so you don't have to suffer the pain of doing on your own.  You're welcome.

Inspiration photo:

What I really looked like?  Jamie Lee Curtis.  No joke.  I got in my car after leaving the salon, looked in my rear-view mirror to back out of my parking space and when, "holy shit!  Jamie Lee Curtis just Freaky Friday'd me!"   Now, don't get me wrong, Jamie Lee has it goin' still, but she's my Mom's age.  Not what I was shooting for.  In all fairness though, since this is a post about easy styles, this one was an absolute piece of cake.  Get up, rinse it in the sink, towel it off, go.  Really, that simple.  You do however, have to cut off all but about 2 inches of your hair to achieve such simplicity, and make pretty regular (every 4 weeks, instead of the usual 6 or 8) trips to the salon to maintain it.  That is exactly the reason that I'm letting mine grow out now.  Frequent trips to the salon mean frequent withdrawals from my bank account...

                                               Inspirational photo:  

What I looked like?  Cleopatra.  But I secretly kind of loved this haircut.  My hair is not pin straight, and definitely not curly, but has just enough of a little wave to take away from the sleekness of this style.  I don't have to tell you that blow drying your hair pin-straight every morning isn't practical for a busy Mom.  So I primarily stuck with pulling it into a ponytail, and only blow drying the bangs.  It gave kind of a sexy librarian look with not a lot of work.

Inspirational photo:

What I looked like?  I'll let you know in about 3 more years when my hair is finally this long again.  But if memory serves, I have pretty epic beach hair when I have the tolerance (about once every 10 years or so) to let my hair get this long (and if I actually make it to the beach during one of those times).  What I love about long hair is that it's kind of the best of both worlds.  If you want that up-out-of-your-face short-hair vibe, they make bobby pins and elastics for that.  If you can stand having it down and touching your neck (this is why mine never makes it to this length), then you just get out of the shower, towel it off, and let it do what it's going to do.  If you're the chick with the unruly curls, you'd probably kill a kitten to have forever-straightened locks.  And if you're the girl who uses a curling iron every single morning to achieve a nice wave, only to have it fall flat by the afternoon, you'd probably make that poor kitten suffer the same fate for some awesome curls.  Maybe that's why I want those beachy waves so badly; because I'm stuck in what seems like a forever-shaggy grow-out oblivion.  We're women.  It's in our nature to to think that what someone else has is better then what we're stuck with.  But please, Stop It!   If you want a simple style that's easy to maintain and can look great quickly, you have to learn to rock what you have.  I've never, ever, EVER been happier with the way I look then when I let my hair just do what it's going to do.  Maybe it's because I don't have to spend as much time fussing with it, so I'm overall much less stressed to begin with.  But spending less time pulling and tugging with a brush, using fewer products, not heat-styling as often really does make for some impressively (naturally) healthy-looking hair.  It is what it is ladies.  Just go with it...

Now, one last thing... If you're going to try something new, go ahead and use this bad boy first.  My mom and I wasted spent a ton of time last weekend messing with this, and it was way too much fun! What a life saver to be able to try on styles before you try the scissors.  Let me just tell you how awful I looked in Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw hair (duh, right?), and how happy I am that I figured that out before trying it out for real.  For real, I would have looked Like Weird Al.

Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey