You know who’s a really beautiful girl? Scarlett Johansson. I’m not going to say anything of her acting ability, though I did like Lost in Translation which is the first role I saw her in that I recall. However I must raise the issue of how questionable her hair always looks. I’m particularly thinking of her styling, she’s had some questionable ones over the years and I very rarely see her with it styled in a way that doesn’t look like shit. However styling aside I think that some of her color choices are pretty questionable as well, I really don’t like her as a blonde, it’s just too much, and she seems to have tried all the shades of it that she can. I think a darker color suits her overall looks better, but I might be biased on that one.

Now that I’m starting in on it and actually thinking about this one, I think she just has bad taste overall. Her clothes, a lot of her roles, and especially the men she’s been involved with! Is it a blonde thing or a beautiful thing? She has always struck me as intelligent enough, so coupled with her beauty that’s about enough, but smarts and tastes have never really been related anyway. In fact I think that sometimes people who are particularly smart have really bad taste. It’s a strange thing really.

Well I might as well take this opportunity to talk about hair in general and that which lies on top of the head in particular. I would say that longer hair, starting once it’s grown near to shoulder length and continuing onwards (longer than halfway down the back is just inconvenient and can in fact look pretty creepy on some people), is an extremely feminine characteristic. Perhaps its characteristic as feminine even surpasses that of the breasts but it is at least drawn equal with them. On the other hand having particularly noticeable hair almost anywhere else on the body, particularly on the face, is a fairly male characteristic. I suppose different people have their varying tastes as far as how much hair where is concerned, and obviously it grows where it grows on who it grows on. But if you’re looking to enhance or diminish either sex characteristic the length of your hair and where you let it grow is as good a place to start as any.

Now as to hair styles, you can do a lot more with moderate-medium length hair than you can with either particuarly short or long hair. Which isn’t to say that you should, just that you have more options. Of course the basic of basics when it comes to styling your hair is parting it. Most people part it in the middle and this is pretty average, which isn’t necessarily bad, I’d say part it on the side if your hair is not of a uniform length or if you have a particularly bad or good side that you want to hide or display. Other than parting your hair wherever there is the choice of whether to push your hair forward, over your eyes (or again if your hair is not a uniform length, whether or not to wear your bangs forward over your brow, a good option if you have scars there you want to detract from); or to pull your hair back.

Now of course you can have different parts of your hair put back but let me caution you that one of the absolute worst looks in the world is just having the middle part of your hair pulled back (typically with a clip or held in the back as in a pony) while the sides are free or sometimes just not as tightly restrained. This looks terrible. This is what people do to those silly, useless little dogs whose fur grows ridiculously long even over their eyes. Are you a toy dog? I mean really, have some respect. Frankly binding your hair back all the way typically does not look so great either. Let me say that if you feel the need to keep your hair/bangs out of your eyes, and you live a moderately active life, you might as well just get your bangs trimmed to a level above your eyes. Having uneven lengths of hair will limit what you can do with it overall, but you have to be realistic. Do you want to be moving your bangs out of your eyes every time you tilt your head like Jennifer Aniston used to do in Friends? Are you doing that now? That’s just fucking ridiculous. Go cut your bangs right now and sort the rest out later.

So other than pulled back you can also pull your hair up as in a bun. This is valid in some ways at some times but avoid just pulling up the middle and back parts of your hair. A bun or pulled up braid in the back with some jaunty bangs in the front is a good short term, possibly special occasions, look depending on who you are. Pulling your hair up tends to look better for those who are thinner, and really bad on fat women and just terrible on men in any case.

Anyway, I’m not really a hair expert (that is, I’m not a stylist) so I don’t know the terminologies involved here and I’m already growing weary (no wonder I never finish my books) so I’ll just throw out some hair looks and styles that I heartily disapprove of:

  • Bald: on women. The single worst hair choice a woman can make is to get rid of all her hair. On men, it works if you have the right shaped head, especially if you’re really big.
  • Partially bald: on anyone. Bad luck there. The good news for you balding is that with all the crap floating around now we’ll all be balding eventually if we aren’t now.
  • Permed: any type on any one. You’re screwing yourself here and no one is fooled.
  • Going in all directions: The real world isn’t a tokyo runway, who do you think you’re kidding?
  • Corn rows: on anyone, ever, but especially on white guys.
  • Curled: on anyone whose hair isn’t naturally curly. However if your hair is partially curly then accentuating that isn’t a bad way to fight frizz if you like the way it looks. I think it’s easier to curl than straighten, personally.
  • Styled like any kind of dog whose fur is actually styled. Enough said.
  • Puffy: on anyone, ever.
  • Stiff hair: on women. By this I basically mean using too much styling/holding product. On men certain stiff styles can look good, spiky hair for instance. But not ALL the time. Men tend to be pretty bad when it comes to changing their hair style, if they find one way of doing it that they remotely like they’ll probably stay with that until their lover begs or bullies them to change it.
  • Wearing a baseball cap all the time.
  • Wearing a Kippah/Yarmulke: Because jewish men so often go bald in the spot on the back of their head that these are worn, they tried to hide behind these hats and say it’s for religious reasons. Don’t be fooled.
  • Real dreadlocks, especially on women (ugh).
  • My hair.

And so on. I tend to be more unforgiving about really intricately styled hair, because if you spend two hours on it a day and it still looks like shit then you’re just an idiot. My hair looks like shit all the time but at least all I do is wash and comb it so I still have my life. eh hem

Well in the end, different styles suit or don’t suit different people so maybe even some of the things I said are terrible would look good on you. But I doubt it. My advice is to first figure out what lengths in which parts of your hair suit your lifestyle the best and then come up with a small variety of ways that you yourself can style it in a reasonable amount of time. In particular you need one really stand out style for the infamous “I hope we’re going to be having sex for the first time tonight” date when you want to be looking your absolute best (I think it’s more important to look your best on this date than it is to look great on your first date but that’s another matter). I would recommend going with the way that your hair was actually styled special by your stylist for that one (assuming it looked good) and toning it down with slight variants on the way it looks without product in the rest of the time. And don’t be afraid to try something new! Just be aware that the more outrageous something looks the more it’s going to be susceptible to degradation.