Long hair question

[DGayle]

This might be off topic since it would never come up in fundie circles, but are there differing lengths as to where hair is seen as long for men versus women? I am guy with long hair, I guess, it's past my shoulder blades now. I've gotten the "you have long hair comments" for a long time now, ever since it was about chin length and I thought that was odd. A woman with hair that length would almost never considered to have long hair at that length, but I did apparently.

In general, I think it's relative. Most guys keep their hair shorter, so that anything much longer than chin is longer than you usually see, so means long. It used to be if a guy's hair touched his ears, it was long, too long, so needed a trim, regardless of age. I don't think there even is a medium length for guys. It's either short, or longer than usual for the area meaning it's long.

[DGayle]

I love long hair if it's healthy and kept trimmed. Mine is so fine and thin, it looks horrible when I grow it out :cry: so I keep it short. I know a couple of fundie women with really thin hair (like mine) and it just looks sad and unhealthy because they won't cut it. I think it gives them an unkempt appearance. On the other hand, I know a few fundies who have tons of really thick hair and they just pile it on top of their heads in a massive arrangement of curls. I wonder if they are considered just a little more "feminine" because they got good hair.

Zsu mentioned once that she likes her hair shorter but her husband AND HER BOYS love it longer so she won't cut it. Really? These women let their sons dictate their hairstyle? I do think Teri Maxwell's hair seems very nice and healthy but I think it might look more age appropriate if she pulled it back in a clip at the neck; but I just like that look. Anna Marie has gorgeous hair and always keeps it fixed really neatly, I think. Speaking of Anna Marie; I've been wondering how old she is. Is she considerably younger than Christopher?

I have no idea why I've rambled so on this topic but this smilie seems appropriate: :pull-hair:

I can get behind not cutting your hair if you're more or less indifferent, and your kids like your hair one way. But you know Zsu is doing this to show how godly and submissive she is to the Y-chromosomes.

[DGayle]

OH! I just had a hilarious thought. Who is someone almost every fundy worships? All these "long hair is womanly and godly?

No one would EVER say Julie wasn't a lady.

[Knight of Ni]

This thread reminds me of a fundamentalist school/college I found on the internet a few years ago. Their dress code was insane. It dictated that women were not to cut or trim their hair. If they did they would be excluded from church service for a year. The women were also required to wear jumpers no shorter than mid calf length and their shirts were limited to select colors. I think there was about five options. It also said something about women's conduct should be "shame-faced" and reserved. WTF does "shame-faced" mean? I've tried to find this same site recently and can't come across it. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[moodygirl86]

This thread reminds me of a fundamentalist school/college I found on the internet a few years ago. Their dress code was insane. It dictated that women were not to cut or trim their hair. If they did they would be excluded from church service for a year. The women were also required to wear jumpers no shorter than mid calf length and their shirts were limited to select colors. I think there was about five options. It also said something about women's conduct should be "shame-faced" and reserved. WTF does "shame-faced" mean? I've tried to find this same site recently and can't come across it. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Probably hanging your head in a shamed pose as if you've done something wrong, even if you haven't. Because obviously just the plain state of being female is something to apologise for.

[Jinger_Cat]

Could I offer a little advice? I'm asked a lot how mu hair is so nice. Don't wash as often. Overwashing is what leads to oily hair, but it'll only be at your scalp. The more you wash, the dryer you make the rest of your hair. When I cut down to once a week, I felt icky for a few weeks, but then the oil production slowed, and now my scalp is great. I won't do the no-poo method. If I sweated a lot, I'll wash it that night.

So true. I wash my hair about every 4-5 days and it's just fine. It doesn't actually look oily after 5 days, but it's wavyish so I need to wash and blow-dry it again after a few ways. (When I used to wash it everyday, it would be uncomfortably oily if I skipped even one day.) I discovered this accidentally during a period when I was super depressed and didn't give a flying fudge about my hair or most anything else and pretty much stopped washing my hair or doing anything for my appearance.

[Jinger Jar]

Could I offer a little advice? I'm asked a lot how mu hair is so nice. Don't wash as often. Overwashing is what leads to oily hair, but it'll only be at your scalp. The more you wash, the dryer you make the rest of your hair. When I cut down to once a week, I felt icky for a few weeks, but then the oil production slowed, and now my scalp is great. I won't do the no-poo method. If I sweated a lot, I'll wash it that night. I also use hair oil, which you usually think of for African hair, but the one I use gives my hair a little more protection and shine.

I wash every 7-10 days and do a 16- to 24-hour oil soak with a coconut oil/ucuuba butter concoction before every shampoo. After deep conditioning I apply a smidge of coconut oil and olive butter and then seal with jojoba oil. About half way between washes I'll dampen my hair with distilled water and lightly re-oil it.

I've found that sweat doesn't really hurt my hair or scalp, so I don't need to wash it even after a heavy workout. I just take my hair down and let it dry before pinning it back up and it's fine. I tried no-pooing, and it didn't work for me because of the porosity of my hair. Baking soda and ACV are too drying. I do co-wash every once in a while, but only when I don't have a lot of product build up. Most of the time my hair and scalp are happiest with with a sulfate-free shampoo and cone-free deep conditioner.

If you're familiar with hair typing, I'm a 1b/c/i, and my stands are very porous. I started covering my hair full-time four years ago, and that has been the single biggest factor in getting my hair to grow past my shoulders. Henna, cassia treatments, the right supplements, and my boar's bristle brush have helped a lot, too.

Still... Most of those ladies I see at the Pentacostal church have these *massive* buns, and when they wear their hair down they've got to be rockin' 40+ inches of hair. I've seen young girls (10-11 years old) with hair to their knees. I get terminal length and all, but I suspect they have got to be doing something that I'm not doing to get to that length, and I want to know what it is! :lol:

[Alye]

I have fine blonde hair. Masses of it but its fine. My hair won't grow more than an inch below my shoulders no matter how hard I try and the only way I can get my hair to curl is to do non-heat curls, as in rag-curls or headband curls, which I then brush out into waves. My brother, the arse, has thick black wavy hair. Growing up he had it down to his butt which was adical in the small country town I grew up in.

[Shoobydoo]

My hair seems to resist this fabled "the less you wash it the slower it gets dirty" effect. I have very thick, fine hair that goes just below my shoulder blades, but no matter what length it is it's uniformly dirty after three days. I could be washing it every other day, every day, every four days, every five days. And my hair is such that the entire texture practically changes, it's light and fluffy right after I wash it but by day 3 it's stick straight and weighed down. It does not help my situation that I basically can't style my own hair. My hair is so thick and fine that it forms massive matts if left to it's own devices-- they were so bad that my mom was still brushing my hair every morning in jr high so I just chopped it all off. Nice and low maintenance but now that I have a foot and a half of hair I can't even braid it. I CAN braid things quite nicely, just not things that are attached to the back of my own head. The best I can manage is a ponytail, or ponytail + a clip holding it up in the back if I'm feeling fancy. :lol:

As a side note, I was raised in an atheist, egalitarian household so there were never any expectations about my or my sister's hair, but I have noticed that the longer it's gotten over the past few years the more catcalls I get. :?

[louisa05]

I have fine blonde hair. Masses of it but its fine. My hair won't grow more than an inch below my shoulders no matter how hard I try and the only way I can get my hair to curl is to do non-heat curls, as in rag-curls or headband curls, which I then brush out into waves. My brother, the arse, has thick black wavy hair. Growing up he had it down to his butt which was adical in the small country town I grew up in.

I have a lot of fine hair, too (new stylists freak out that it is this fine and thick at the same time). It wouldn't grow much below my shoulders for forever. Suddenly, in the last four years, it has grown and grown and is to the middle of my back. I think that a few changes made the difference--since I haven't been working full time, I blow dry it probably once every three or four months. I use no heat styling ever, now. And I condition the ends every time I shampoo now, when before I rarely bothered to use conditioner. I also use no product on it anymore. Shampoo and conditioner and that's it.

But I don't buy the no shampoo or rare washing thing--I wash it every 2-3 days. The slightest bit of not being clean weighs down fine hair and makes it look like crap. And too much conditioner weighs down fine hair and makes it look like crap, as well, so the whole conditioner in place of shampoo would be ridiculous, too. And I find that since I stopped using other products in my hair, I don't have the kind of build up I had before. The build up was not from shampoo.

[yetanothermeg]

I grew up in a Brethren sect, and our congregation had a lousy Christian school.

Now I want to know what Brethren group you belonged to. Did the women wear headcoverings?

[actuallyjessica]

theres a huge brethren church neighbouring my house. the womens hair is always at least to their shoulder blades and they always wear bows/headbands/flowers in their hair. some older women wear scarves.

[Joan of Snarc]

Probably hanging your head in a shamed pose as if you've done something wrong, even if you haven't. Because obviously just the plain state of being female is something to apologise for.

Yes. Look like you're guilty of tempting Adam. Always and forever. Because whatever he did, it was your fault.

:roll:

[16strong]

This thread reminds me of a fundamentalist school/college I found on the internet a few years ago. Their dress code was insane. It dictated that women were not to cut or trim their hair. If they did they would be excluded from church service for a year. The women were also required to wear jumpers no shorter than mid calf length and their shirts were limited to select colors. I think there was about five options. It also said something about women's conduct should be "shame-faced" and reserved. WTF does "shame-faced" mean? I've tried to find this same site recently and can't come across it. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Yes, does anyone know? I am beyond curious now.

Knight of Ni (Love that name! :D), do you remember any other details about it? Like what state or region it was located in, what church it was affiliated with? A letter the name started with?

[IronicallyMaeve]

I have long(ish) hair. If I straighten it, it's just past my shoulderblades. It's 2b/c type. Medium-coarse, low poristy, high density. Basically, I have lots of hair and it tends to frizz but wants to curl. I started using a sulfate-free shampoo (Jessicurl) and a botantical (ie, plant-based) conditioner and I've seen a lot of improvement.

I used to have to wash my hair every other day, because it would be horribly greasy by the third day. Now I can go 3 days without a problem. I still shower just as often, but it's nice not to wait hours for my hair to dry.

I've had hair of all lengths, from a short pixie to down to my butt. As weird as my mother is, she always let me do my hair however I wanted. In kindergarten, when my hair was down to my butt, I demanded short hair. After resisting temporarily, she cut it herself (and gave me a mullet).

I don't get the obsession with super long hair. I'm growing my hair out because *I* want to. If anyone told me to, I'd probably chop it all off to spite them. My hair grows so fast that it took more upkeep than I wanted to keep it looking good when it was short. Now, I go in a few times a year to get it trimmed.

[RachelB]

Yes, does anyone know? I am beyond curious now.

Knight of Ni (Love that name! :D), do you remember any other details about it? Like what state or region it was located in, what church it was affiliated with? A letter the name started with?

After looking in the O.E.D.,"shame-faced" is KJV-era English for "modest, bashful, shy." During the 19th century, people started using it to mean "ashamed."

I would wager that the people who wrote the dress code don't realize that the word has changed over time and actually think that being a woman is something to be ashamed of.

[Lisa]

The long hair issue intrigues me because I have a form of alopecia. It's quite ugly and I get a lot of crap for it, mostly from rude relatives and from strangers, when I go out without wearing a (painful, itchy) wig or scarf. Hair loss in women isn't so very rare that fundies would be immune, so I wonder if they get harassment over it. I mean, would people urge them to pray for a full head of godly hair? Urge them to wear wigs? Assume that hair loss is a sign of God's disfavor? It wouldn't surprise me to hear that fundamentalist women with hair loss suffer even more than secular women do.

[moodygirl86]

The long hair issue intrigues me because I have a form of alopecia. It's quite ugly and I get a lot of crap for it, mostly from rude relatives and from strangers, when I go out without wearing a (painful, itchy) wig or scarf. Hair loss in women isn't so very rare that fundies would be immune, so I wonder if they get harassment over it. I mean, would people urge them to pray for a full head of godly hair? Urge them to wear wigs? Assume that hair loss is a sign of God's disfavor? It wouldn't surprise me to hear that fundamentalist women with hair loss suffer even more than secular women do.

Probably the same as they say about all other medical conditions - you're not Godly enough.

Sorry to hear how rude people have been to you about your alopecia. They're just ignorant, but fair play to you for refusing to hide the fact! You shouldn't have to wear a wig to be treated like a proper person. It will only be when we all start refusing to apologise for baldness/weight gain/any other aspect of our body that it will stop being socially acceptable for others to be arseholes about it.

[Coco]

The long hair issue intrigues me because I have a form of alopecia. It's quite ugly and I get a lot of crap for it, mostly from rude relatives and from strangers, when I go out without wearing a (painful, itchy) wig or scarf. Hair loss in women isn't so very rare that fundies would be immune, so I wonder if they get harassment over it. I mean, would people urge them to pray for a full head of godly hair? Urge them to wear wigs? Assume that hair loss is a sign of God's disfavor? It wouldn't surprise me to hear that fundamentalist women with hair loss suffer even more than secular women do.

it's pretty common actually, in my experience. From the weight of never cutting hair and constantly pulling it back tightly from girlhood on. Some friends of mine from my headcovering days had bare or even bald spots where they always put their bobby pins and hair pins. It might have to do with using harsh Amish-made hairpins like this too:

Some women who had receding hairlines would just pull their headcoverings forward and have no hair showing. Thankfully they never got any ridicule from it though. It's too bad they weren't allowed to use wigs or hairpieces just to feel better about themselves. The church didn't say it was God's disfavor, it was just a health issue like people who had dental problems and missing teeth. There was just no allowing for anything that would be considered unnecessary or "vain". When i first started birth control i lost some hair but realized later that it was due to stress, not the pill. Thank goodness for that, but i'd wear a wig if i had to. I just don't understand why people make rules against women doing things to make themselves feel beautiful and have more self esteem.

[utter solitude]

The bolded is why. Can't have the wimmins feeling good about themselves!

[Coco]

it's so sad. :|

[FiddleDD]

I know my aunt who lives near the amish has said they often get traction alopecia because of how tightly they pull their hair up. It happens in African American women as well from certain hairstyles.

I actually own and love the amish hair pins, but I'm sure if I put the same one tightly and roughly in the same spot day after day it would cause damage, but then again so would lots of things. If you look at the article on Traction Alopecia on wiki it has a picture of a dog it happened to because of hair clips (ouch!).

But yeah, I just popped back out of a season of lurkdom to say don't trash on the amish hair pins because they're awesome. :lol:

[Grimalkin]

The long hair issue intrigues me because I have a form of alopecia. It's quite ugly and I get a lot of crap for it, mostly from rude relatives and from strangers, when I go out without wearing a (painful, itchy) wig or scarf. Hair loss in women isn't so very rare that fundies would be immune, so I wonder if they get harassment over it. I mean, would people urge them to pray for a full head of godly hair? Urge them to wear wigs? Assume that hair loss is a sign of God's disfavor? It wouldn't surprise me to hear that fundamentalist women with hair loss suffer even more than secular women do.

I know a mom that is completely bald and only wears hats in the sun and really cold days.

She has a pretty face and always wears makeup and earrings but she rocks her baldness!

She is also a third grade teacher.

[Coco]

I know my aunt who lives near the amish has said they often get traction alopecia because of how tightly they pull their hair up. It happens in African American women as well from certain hairstyles.

I actually own and love the amish hair pins, but I'm sure if I put the same one tightly and roughly in the same spot day after day it would cause damage, but then again so would lots of things. If you look at the article on Traction Alopecia on wiki it has a picture of a dog it happened to because of hair clips (ouch!).

But yeah, I just popped back out of a season of lurkdom to say don't trash on the amish hair pins because they're awesome. :lol:

i didn't mean to trash them lol they are amazing and don't rust; they last forever. But yeah, my friends would get into a set hairstyle and always put them in the same place on their scalp to hold the bun. Any type of fastener, really, could do damage that way.

[Mama Mia]

I wash every 7-10 days and do a 16- to 24-hour oil soak with a coconut oil/ucuuba butter concoction before every shampoo. After deep conditioning I apply a smidge of coconut oil and olive butter and then seal with jojoba oil. About half way between washes I'll dampen my hair with distilled water and lightly re-oil it.

Still... Most of those ladies I see at the Pentacostal church have these *massive* buns, and when they wear their hair down they've got to be rockin' 40+ inches of hair. I've seen young girls (10-11 years old) with hair to their knees. I get terminal length and all, but I suspect they have got to be doing something that I'm not doing to get to that length, and I want to know what it is! :lol:

Due to circumstances beyond my control I'm only able to get my hair washed once a week or so, so would love to make it worth it. Could you describe the deep conditioning a little more? How much oil, and is this only before washing, or do you put something else on afterwards too?

Also, for anyone who has a really difficult scalp, the absolute best thing I've found - conventional, medicated or natural - is shampoo with neem oil. Only thing that got my scalp healthy, and didnt take long at all. It smells strong so a shampoo that also has lemon or something is good.

As far as the hair length, I think so much of it comes down to genetics and chance. My granddaughter had thick masses of hair past her butt by her 4th birthday. Her mom at that age still had wispy curls barely to her shoulders ( although now it will grow to her waist, but that's as long as it will go). We have a bunch of little girls in my family right now who all have fast growing long hair - except one who is just getting past the fine wispy stage at 5.