Screwing

A few weeks ago, I saw a video on YouTube for something that, for better or worse, could be called "hair screws". I immediately wanted to try them, because any product that can hold my hair in place--never mind in an updo, which is my preferred method of wearing my hair, since long ponytails are also annoying to deal with--is worth its weight in gold. See, my hair is straight, thin, and smooth--meaning that any method of holding it in place is bound to slip and fail at some point. When I was eight or nine, I persuaded my mom to let me get a perm, which promptly fell out after a week. Hair products that purport to hold a style in place for hours at a time literally cannot get a grip on my hair. So hair screws, that promised not to fall out and hold my hair without slipping? Too good to be true.

It took me a while to hunt them down--they were hidden on the bottom shelf, behind some bobby pins, at the local Etos (slightly-more-upscale version of the Kruidvat), and they came in only one color, which was dark brown. Fine by me--my hair has only gotten lighter over the years, apparently--but I would have gotten the "blonde" color, because I was that curious, and since it gets buried in your hair anyway, I don't think anybody would have noticed.

I've since found that they don't work that well if my hair is dry--it really has to be damp for the pins to get the traction to hold them in place. If I put my hair up after I wash it, it stays in place for the rest of the day--the rest of the day. Revelation and glory! Most Dutch women either have short hair, or wear it long, so going out with a bun (or a chignon, in my case) seems to be a token of or extreme snobbiness. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn: fiddling with my hair only once--at most, twice--a day is a convenience I will always cherish.

Of course, that means I'll need something else to piddle around with when I have a writer's block. Tune in later to see what I've found...