Hairband heaven

I wore a black hairband for many years with scarcely a break, and it became very much part of my 'signature look'. Some of my friends liked it, asserting that it suited me. Some didn't, asserting that it wasn't the very best look I could have. The same people might however prop sunglasses up on the top of their heads, just like a hairband, or would themselves wear various hair-clips and hair-fastenings. So there was an inconsistency here, and - as with so many things that are inconsequential in themselves, but generate strong opinions - it seemed that there might be an irrational prejudice behind the naysayers' point of view. 

Speaking for myself, I had rational reasons for wearing a hairband. One: it helped to keep my fine and easily-blown-about hair in place, or at least sufficiently so to make combing and smoothing my hair back to how it should be an easy task. Two: I thought the line of the hairband balanced the line of my chin, helping to shape and define my face. Three: it was an attractive and appealing type of hair-decoration that was very easy to wear. No fiddling about. No skill required. Hairbands were idiot-proof. 

I conceded that in some circles these things were called 'Alice bands', and as such were the headgear of young girls, not mature women. But I countered that suggestion by wearing a sombre black band, and not anything obviously pretty-pretty and girly-whirly.  

Someone thought I was wearing my hairbands wrongly - too far forward, or too far back - but I wore it in the way that felt most natural. In any case, I wasn't aware of any rules on this. And if there were rules, then I wasn't going to be a slave to them. 

I liked being different and distinctive in small, harmless ways. Individuality was very, very important. Following the pack - or bowing to peer pressure - felt like letting myself down, selling myself short. Setting the trend was so much better. The thing I most liked about wearing a hairband was that so few other women were wearing them. I reckon I flew the flag for hairbands.

Recently I've started to notice many girls and women sporting what look, to me, like hairbands of one kind or another. Have I, and others like me, finally broken the anti-hairband prejudice?

At the start of this post I said that I wore a black hairband for years. But as 2020 dawned I set it aside, making it a New Year Resolution to do without. Some of my friends cheered at my change of heart, and congratulated me. Others held a metaphoric candlelit vigil in sad regret that I'd abandoned an accessory that had suited me well. The event was described in my post on 8th January 2020 titled The Hairband. In it I found ways to justify binning my black hairband. But I was fooling myself. The resolution didn't last. My post Back to black on 29th February 2020 tells how I re-equipped myself, and restored the look that had served me so well over the years. 

With one change: I didn't stay with black. I began to try other colours. Blue. Two kinds of red. Then I found that I had three plastic tortoiseshell hairbands in my vaults, and soon started to wear those instead. It was a similar look to the old black hairband, but slightly more interesting. And the effect was softer, less definite, not such a hard line on the top of my head. They were, however, rather old hairbands, laying long in my drawer as never-used spares, and they had become brittle. One by one they snapped apart after only two or three months of daily wear. That's mass-produced thin plastic for you. It was clear that I needed something of better quality. 

So yesterday afternoon I looked on the internet. With very few exceptions, I saw nothing but rather cheap hairbands from Chinese suppliers. I wasn't interested in those. I didn't mind paying more. I looked at the exceptions. One stood out, Crisco, and they had two bands that caught my eye. I went for the darker tortoiseshell option. With postage, it would cost me £18.20, but it was handmade out of sheet resin, looked beautiful, and was the right width, 15mm, which is neither too thin nor too wide. I paid online, and it arrived today. Here it is after unpacking. It had shipped in a nice bag with a drawstring.

 

That translucent mottled pattern was most attractive. It was twice as thick as the plastic hairbands I'd used over the years, suggesting that it would prove very durable. And the finish was superb. £18.20 didn't feel too much to pay, although it was of course easy to pick up a bog-standard good-enough hairband for just £3.00 at Boots or Superdrug. Indeed, I had some already. But my cheap plastic hairbands weren't at all like this superior product. I put two of them, a black band, and what was meant to be a tortoiseshell band, next to this new one from Crisco, in order to make a side-by-side comparison.

Well, I think my new hairband beats the other two hands down. It's partly the better finish, but it's just as much the better material used. The plain black plastic band looks lifeless by comparison, and the smooth surface generates unwanted reflections. The brown/orange plastic 'tortoiseshell' band is also too shiny, and too see-through; nor does it have anything like the proper tortoiseshell patterning. The two plastic bands were cheap - and look it. They will be relegated to gardening duties, or for when I wash the car, the caravan, or the windows of my house. For anything else, my new Crisco hairband.

You'll have gathered that Crisco were very quick off the mark, to get their hairband to me within a day. There's more to mention. I wasn't sure that I'd quite completed the purchase transaction, and ended up ordering a duplicate band in error, paying twice. My fault. But the person at the Crisco end realised that I'd ordered a second band by mistake, and without prompting immediately took steps to refund the second payment of £18.20. Such is personal service: you get a human being who sees what has happened and puts it right. I was impressed, and of course thankful, and sent an email saying so. I will be using them again (I now have my eye on a comb). I will certainly recommend Crisco to others. My local friends are bound to notice my new hairband - including the ones who have tried in the past to get me to abandon them - and I will tell them where I got my lovely new hairband from, and why I rate Crisco very highly for customer service. They write pleasant emails too. 

Their website is here: https://www.crisco.co.uk/.    

It's always good to discover a new place to shop that comes up trumps! 

I'm sorry for my el cheapo plastic hairbands, though. I can't go back to them now, except for rough household use where function matters but not style. 

And what do I look like, wearing this new band? Judge for yourself. This is the band on my head in various indoor lighting conditions, and from various angles:

One final small thing. I call these things 'hairbands' but Crisco and other firms call them 'headbands'. I'm not sure which is truly correct. It probably doesn't matter. 

Sequel

When out and about in towns, the new hairband wouldn't stay in place. Why not? Eventually I realised that putting my face mask on and off when visiting shops disturbed the tips of the hairband, and it would come loose. It was all that fumbling with the elastic that hoicks around each ear. Putting my sunglasses on and off also had similar consequences. You could wear the hairband (and any of my other bands) but only if prepared to push it back into position at frequent intervals. But what a drag that was!  

This is a pandemic/sunny weather problem that will lessen as the year fades into autumn and winter, but just for now I think I'll have to go bandless. Tsk.