What was your hair like in the 80s?

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I had a hi-top fade. How about you? (pictures are a bonus)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

Chin length with bangs? I don't remember.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

It got really long by 1988-89 though.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:44 (9 years ago) Permalink

microphone-shaped

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:44 (9 years ago) Permalink

short, mousey, with a vague attempt at an 80s style spikey 'do that never worked because my hair is too fine. There was also the notorious short perm disaster of '85, and the asymetrical Phil Oakey look of '88. From that I went to a standard bob I've pretty much stuck to with a few exceptions ever since.

I hate my hair with a passion.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

Shorter.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:47 (9 years ago) Permalink

buzz-cut or that little kid beatles-esque thing where it's all one length ("chili bowl"?)

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:47 (9 years ago) Permalink

my hair history is here:
http://homepage.mac.com/radio_free_albemuth/Chelsea/PhotoAlbum24.html

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

For a long time the latter, then I found parts and brushovers.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

I once got my hair cut in a mushroom shape. That was the coolest haircut I ever had. It was punk and urban all rolled up into one!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:49 (9 years ago) Permalink

80's politely cut how my mum would like it
90's messy and curly cos I was indie
now vicious crewcut because it saves hassle (see also big shoulders and psychotic glare)

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:49 (9 years ago) Permalink

I had a hi-top fade.

patrick ewing!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:49 (9 years ago) Permalink

My friend says I had a Tony Hawk-style haircut. It was pretty short in the back, and then really long in the front. Kind of like a mullet turned around 180 degrees.

― NA (Nick A.), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:49 (9 years ago) Permalink

i had a robert smith-doo for a week in 1989. till i came home from college, my dad flipped out and said "you look like a faggot" and wouldn't let me back in the house till i got it chopped off.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:50 (9 years ago) Permalink

early 80s: straight bob
mid 80s: poodle perm
late 80s: starting to get into punk/grunge territory.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

in b/w robert smith-dom, it was the spike-thing. till the very end of 89, when it became pre-cobain moptop.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

Did any female ilx0r who went thru the 80s NOT have a poodle perm at some point? I reckon every one of us had at least one. Its like an 80s rite of passage.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

did you have a roach-clip too?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 02:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

i had one, and a cellophane too, but the perms would never take. i have perm-reject hair.

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:03 (9 years ago) Permalink

Unbelievably fucking huge. A really big helmet, mainly to hide my right ear, which I was having operations on. It's quite cute in retrospect.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:06 (9 years ago) Permalink

hey people! pictures please!

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:09 (9 years ago) Permalink

No-one is seeing my bad 80s photos, no way!

Actually, I havent scanned any, heh.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:11 (9 years ago) Permalink

I just may try to get a picture up here soon.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:12 (9 years ago) Permalink

My mom's photo's look funny. There is one that I keep in a picture frame in my room where she looks nice though. I think that photo's from the eighties. If not, early ninties.

― Aja (aja), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

oh man in my 7th grade picture I have a poodle perm, a turquoise shirt, and braces, it's astoundingly bad.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:17 (9 years ago) Permalink

you were prob. the 7th grade hottie in that get up though.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:17 (9 years ago) Permalink

Oh gosh, so many different cuts and colors it was just silly.

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:19 (9 years ago) Permalink

i never had a perm. my mom prohibited it. i cursed her at the time, but this is one of the only instances in which the phrase "someday you'll thank me" was true. i did have a dorothy hamill 'do at one point, though...

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:19 (9 years ago) Permalink

actually my hair was astoundingly the same. except that the haircut I have now (you have to click the link on the top of the "Nostalgia" page to get to it) looks like the one I had in 1971 as a kid. Full circle!

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:21 (9 years ago) Permalink

down to my ass. it was annoying, it'd get caught in the little screws on chairs at primary school, owwwwww!

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 03:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

I never had a perm, but everyone else did. I had my hair feathered for a time in the mid-80s I think, then had it short.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

went from really fucking i'm-a-thug-me short to slightly longer o-do-you-use-gel (no-i-just-don't-wash-it) to tintin which was like half way between the first two

― mullygrubber (gaz), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:19 (9 years ago) Permalink

o also v.early 80's it was cut it yerself in a twee postcard fan curtains style. actually they're all cut-it-yerself.

― mullygrubber (gaz), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:22 (9 years ago) Permalink

I never had a poodle perm. EVER.

I had every other 80s hair cliche, though. Started the decade with a Diana Doo. Then an asymmetrical sort of Eton Crop inspired by Brideshead Revisited. Started a ratstail. Then I shaved my head. Then I sculpted what was left into a mohawk. Then I discovered the Jesus and Mary Chain and crimping irons in that order and spent several years looking like a lost Reid sister on a good day and Fat Bob Smith on a bad day. By the end of the 80s, I could no longer afford the hairspray and ended up with the shit floppy mullet that ended up on my passport photo.

Don't even ask what colours I had. Easier to say what colour I *didn't* have. I never had green hair. Everything else was pretty much covered.

― the river fleet, Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

we all have sensible hair now then, i guess?

― mullygrubber (gaz), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

when I was 12-13, mullet fucking city.

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

(meaning, of course, that it looked like a mullet fucking a city*)

(*this may be a lie)

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:47 (9 years ago) Permalink

MULLETS MULLETS EVERYWHERE!!!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

I have photos of pretty much all of these, but unfortunately the scanner doesn't work. :-(

― the river fleet, Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:50 (9 years ago) Permalink

mmm. manic panic!

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 04:57 (9 years ago) Permalink

Back in the 80s, my mum usually took me to the hairdressers and told them what to do. So, it was bowl cuts all the way. In fact, I always ended up with exactly the same hair cut as my mum had (and still has).

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

Like it is now but without a parting. More of a crap pudding-bowl cut, I guess.

But I was also blonde then. :(

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

My '80s hair:

1. A lady Di, yuck (growing out child's self-cut disaster) with FEATHERING (hair too thick to do this well)
2. which grew into a Sassoon bob
3. which became Phil Oakey happy hair
4. which became quiff/Marychain (no crimp but hello Aqua-Net) depending on growth
5. which became Louise Brooks/Corinne Drewery/Siouxsie in Peek-A-Boo bob when my hair-dye thing started
6. which became Shakespear's Sister maddo-woman short fringe/long hair/partial shaved head to ears/punk Audrey Hepburn thing

My neighbour throughout was an in-home hairdresser who'd trained at Toni and Guy in London in the late '70s but was now young mum in Mpls. suburbs doing $8 haircuts. I did not do Manic Panic at all, dyed hair black ONCE which was too much, went to dark no-purple auburn colour then to coffee-coloured shade close to 'natural' colour.

― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:29 (9 years ago) Permalink

Sean compared my hair to Phil Oakey's. So that's a bad thing, is it?

*googles Phil Oakey*

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:32 (9 years ago) Permalink

exactly the same as it is now

― jeremy jordan (cruisy), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:23 (9 years ago) Permalink

not much different. same colour/quantity.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:27 (9 years ago) Permalink

It was kind of ordinary.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:29 (9 years ago) Permalink

During the 80's I was a proud owner of the great Australian Mullett. It looked like a roadkill cat on my head with a long shaggy mane down back like the rest of my 'headbanger' pals.

regards,

REB

― Rik E Boy (Rik E Boy), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

actually longer

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

Ditto. Mousey schoolboy sans style. By 1988 I had a bit of a side parting with luscious cowlick going on; by 1989 it was centre parted and heading towards the indie/public school curtains I had until 1996.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 10:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 5 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

for most of the 80's i had butt-length hair that my mom would put in cute pony/pig tails or braids with ribbons and stuff.

my first hair style was armpit length and stick straight except my bangs which were permed. tightly permed. i was only like 10, so it wasn't sprayed or teased or anything. just sitting there. kind of like a brillo pad.

then a year later i became interested in fashion and stuff and got it cut into a chin-length bob with fringe. since then it's been some variation of that from crop to bob. i was the only girl at my middle school that didn't have a claw or 'wings' on the side.

― colette (a2lette), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 14:47 (9 years ago) Permalink

It was incongruously straighter than it is today, for no apparent reason. My old passport picture (taken in `87) tells a tragic tale (i.e. Glenn Danzig circa Misfits Walk Among Us). To compound matters, I'm wearing a Bauhaus t-shirt in the pic. Aye carumba!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 14:50 (9 years ago) Permalink

more plentiful

― Huck Everlasting (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 14:55 (9 years ago) Permalink

I had Jane Wiedlin poodle hair.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

man oh man do I want to scan in some of my yearbook pictures.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 16:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

early '80s:

― jody (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 17:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

webcrack really must scan his senior picture. best 80s hair i've seen in a long time...

― colette (a2lette), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 17:36 (9 years ago) Permalink

It was really awful, a horrible poufy disaster because I had no idea how to do hair at all back then. Every time I look at a picture of me from back then I just cringe.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 18:08 (9 years ago) Permalink

I once got my hair cut in a mushroom shape. That was the coolest haircut I ever had. It was punk and urban all rolled up into one!

This sounds amazing - you must post a picture!

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 18:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

Haha that yearbook is in MN! You will have to wait until the next time I visit the folks.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 18:24 (9 years ago) Permalink

Never ever had a perm. I had a page-boy haircut. Tomboy central.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 18:29 (9 years ago) Permalink

so dan, you went for the kid 'n play look?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 18:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

Not quite that high! (Although in the interim between haircuts I was rockin' the grown-out boxhead look something FIERCE.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 18:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

the sprayed bangs look: THE CLAW

AIEEEEE! the claw! i'd forgotten about/repressed that. in addition to be spared the poodle perm by my mother's common sense, i was spared the claw by being sent to beyond-snooty girls' school where the only acceptable look was long, straight, and blond. i may have been teased, but at least i never had mile-high bangs!

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 18:44 (9 years ago) Permalink

Pudding basin.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 19:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

A common accessory for girls with Claws was the name necklace.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:13 (9 years ago) Permalink

That first Jody picture is hot and hip! It would be a highly viable look here in Berlin Friedrichshain right now.

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:20 (9 years ago) Permalink

I had 'the hairstyle of the devil', a Neil Tennant perm:

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:23 (9 years ago) Permalink

I got subjected to the perm thing one time in my life, when my parents and I were living in Pacifica and a nearby aunt agreed to give me a home perm, horror of horrors. Dear God that was the worst thing. Thankfully, though, that was the only time I had to deal with that.

For the rest of my childhood, though, I rocked the "straight as a ruler" long hair thing, where I'd either have my hair up in a ponytail or down with a clip gathered up at the top. So basically not too far removed from what my hair's like these days, except I don't have the "my mom cut my fringe at home" problem anymore, thus escaping the horrors of this:

(Real, authentic picture of me in the '80s!)

― Mellow Dee (Dee the Lurker), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

(Momus, love the look you had going on in the '80s!)

― Mellow Dee (Dee the Lurker), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

hey dee did you have a quinceañera?

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

Momus, love the look you had going on in the '80s!

But the white socks! How could I?

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:16 (9 years ago) Permalink

I mean, what were we thinking?

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:16 (9 years ago) Permalink

But the white socks! How could I?

There ain't nothin' wrong none with white socks.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:18 (9 years ago) Permalink

Permtastic. I didn't have the claw, but did have feathered bangs - I feel guilty for the part I played in widening the hole in the ozone with all that fucking hairspray.

― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 22:08 (9 years ago) Permalink

i love how all this was started us watching a Bryan Ferry vid on VH1 Classic last night.

oh yeah, and i had a helmet in the late 80s, and short-haired-dork look for the rest of the time.

― Kingfish Funyun (Kingfish), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 22:18 (9 years ago) Permalink

8 years pass...

Not a mullet or a perm, that's for sure. My mom (giant social snob) would kill me if I got a "perm".

― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Bulgarian Tourist Chamber (Mount Cleaners), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 02:14 (11 months ago) Permalink

Because Miami was the home of the mullet and its aberrant forebears the rat tail and the teja I avoided all three. Mine was moussed and blowdried high.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 02:16 (11 months ago) Permalink

Rat tail was kind of cool. Some mullets were cool in the early days. I remember making fun of mullet heads in high school, like, "Why are you wearing your hair in a punk hairstyle. You hate punks."

― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Bulgarian Tourist Chamber (Mount Cleaners), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 02:31 (11 months ago) Permalink

started the decade with it short cos I was at school think I actually went pretty much skinhead at one haircut, grew it out to about 14" afro which I kept for a couple of years. I blocked view of the guy behind me in a school photo at one point. had the sides shaved at the end of '83 then started wearing hair gel in the thing, which I didn't really learn to utilise effectively, think I kept the sides shaved for a while. Then started spending friday afternoons in front of a mirror plaiting my hair into thin spiked plaits which I eventually got tired of doing and allowed to dread.
Had these combed out in 1984 and thicker plaits done which didn't work. Not sure how long I had that but went back to dreading my hair over next couple of years which took a while to really take hold. & at ione point i cut the har at the front short, in line with my glasses but it sprang up and led me to cutting a lot of the rest of it including shaving the sides of my head again. But have had dreads ever since.

― Stevolende, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 06:38 (11 months ago) Permalink

I had a mini mullet, but my brother went all out with his.

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 06:46 (11 months ago) Permalink

You know, firey

― Slurpee driver, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 06:47 (11 months ago) Permalink

At the end of the 80s, I was rocking the skater swoop over one eye.

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 06:47 (11 months ago) Permalink

Yeah the inlines swoop, baby!

― Slurpee driver, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 06:48 (11 months ago) Permalink

first half of the 80's: schoolboy bowlcut
second half of the 80's: a rat's rest

― banal like a null (snoball), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 08:26 (11 months ago) Permalink

I never really managed to sort out this 'hair' thing until the late 90's.

― banal like a null (snoball), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 08:26 (11 months ago) Permalink

I think I had the regular schoolboy bowlcut too for most of the decade. I turned 10 in 1989, so hair wasn't yet important to me in the 80s.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 09:05 (11 months ago) Permalink

i've had the same haircut - more or less - since 1982. short sides slightly longer on top. the new wave look! for a brief period in 87/88 I reverted to my 70s hippie length but quickly decided it looked even worse on a 30 y.o. than a teenager. these days I'm just thankful I still have (thinning) hair on top.

― (REAL NAME) (m coleman), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 09:48 (11 months ago) Permalink

Yeah, didn't really have hair control issues until the last couple of years of the decade. Wanted to grow it super long, but the best I could do was a low-grade mullet, one of the key features of which was that I shaved the sides. It was a mohawk ambition that I finally achieved during the last week of school in seventh grade (1991?).

Did manage a decent rat-tail for a while. I also wanted a one-eye, but my hair was so curly that it took too long to get there and seemed like it was just going to permanently bounce around just over my eyebrow. I HATED having curly hair.

― how's life, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 09:49 (11 months ago) Permalink

i had a mullet

― melodic yew (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 09:49 (11 months ago) Permalink

also a quiff, a full on perm, some long straggly shit, can't remember how 1989 ended, bouffant probs

― melodic yew (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 09:49 (11 months ago) Permalink

i spent way too many years growing out the ill-advised mullet of 87

― sarahell, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 09:52 (11 months ago) Permalink

when i had my perm my mates called me George Berry

but i don't think it was quite that tbh

― melodic yew (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 09:58 (11 months ago) Permalink

Early 80s: Floppy centre-parting horrible schoolboy thing
Late 80s: Short at the back & sides, long and messy on top terrible indie lad thing

George Berry is a massive blast from the past, think he played the one time my uncle took me to Molineux to see Wolves v Spurs. Think Emlyn Hughes was playing too?

― Heaven knows I'm thirsty and miserable now (NickB), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 10:08 (11 months ago) Permalink

My haircut at the time was more of a Stuart Pearson sort of thing

― Heaven knows I'm thirsty and miserable now (NickB), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 10:15 (11 months ago) Permalink

my 80s went something like

boring schoolboy side-shade with long fringe > Ian McCulloch > long shaggy mess > Alarm-style spiky mullet > Daniel Ash mohawk-ish thing > Cure/Nick Cave bird's nest

― Djibril Citté (onimo), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 10:32 (11 months ago) Permalink

i had ian mcculloch hair for a while as well. i liked it. my boyfriend's mother said, why can't you get a girl who looks like a girl instead of one who looks like a hybrid, which pleased me because she was not my cup of tea and now i had proof i irked her.

― estela, Wednesday, 23 May 2012 12:07 (11 months ago) Permalink

something terrible like this iirc

http://images.tribe.net/tribe/upload/photo/735/12a/73512ac2-9bc2-4c63-b209-780c97cb957f

― it's smdh time in America (will), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 12:30 (11 months ago) Permalink

― it's smdh time in America (will), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 12:31 (11 months ago) Permalink

maybe not quite as severe but yeah

― it's smdh time in America (will), Wednesday, 23 May 2012 12:31 (11 months ago) Permalink

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