The hairband

Have you noticed? I'm not wearing my hairband any more.

I'd worn a black hairband for years. I justified it as a means of keeping some control for my fine-textured hair when out in a breeze. Well, sometimes it helped. Mostly it made no great difference. More honestly, I just liked wearing that hairband.

I thought it added something individual to my general appearance. I couldn't hope to gain extra cuteness or prettiness, and at my age those things were inappropriate. What was I after? Not sophistication; it was the opposite of 'sophistication' that I wanted - a certain simplicity - the message being that I cared nothing for elaborate ways of expressing my femininity.

Which was indeed true - I've never wanted to plaster my face with makeup, nor wear false nails and eyelashes, nor undergo 'beauty treatments' and other enhancement procedures. Lipstick has been enough. Lipstick plus nice clothes. And no other wearable accessories except a minimum amount of silver jewellery, my Fitbit - and that hairband.

Over the years my women friends, who do not wear hairbands, urged me to discard it. 'Definitely not a good look, Lucy,' they'd say. I resisted. I liked the fact that nobody else was wearing one. That made it my trademark accessory. But then I rarely wore a hat, or a hood. If I ever did, the hairband tended to get moved out of position, dragged off, or else become uncomfortable. But as I usually went bareheaded, this was only a problem for now and then.

Then two things changed as 2019 drew to a close.

First, I bought that green raincoat with a hood from Seasalt in mid-October. What a fantastic buy! And just in time for the weeks and weeks of wet and windy weather we've had ever since. I've had to use the hood a lot. And - guess what - I found I was forever disturbing the hairband, pulling it forwards when I put the hood up, and backwards when I bared my head again. That was starting to get irritating!

Second, I gashed my scalp when fainting at home at the end of November. I couldn't wear the hairband while the wound was still raw. So it was absent from my head for almost a month. And when I tried it on again, it felt strange. I felt the pressure of it on my scalp, and I didn't like that. To be frank, my long-time attitude towards it (and my long-time dependence on it?) had changed. I felt I could put it away and begin 2020 bandless. In fact, I turned Going Without My Hairband into a New Year's Resolution, along with Getter Fitter.

Readers of this blog (or followers of my Flickr site) must be sick to death of my endless self-portraits, but I'll have to use them to illustrate what I'm talking about, with some examples from 2019. (There's no mercy)

This is what the hairband was supposed to do for my appearance, given no wind to ruffle my hair and hide the band:

I think the headband does frame my face nicely, with a dark line on the top of my head. But if I keep my chin up, it isn't always visible.

Out of doors, it often gets half-covered by my easily-blown-about hair. Sometimes the hairband gets totally concealed, making it pointless to wear it. (It's actually rather useless at keeping my hair under control!)

So what do I look like now, sans the hairband? Here's one shot not included in any recent posts.

I think that's OK. It certainly looks natural. I'm staying with it, anyway. And if my hair gets more untidy than it used to, well, that's not remarkable for a woman when out and about. Indeed the 'tousled look' can be alluring, though perhaps only on a younger specimen than myself. But I can deceive most old codgers with defective eyesight!

The hairband has in fact been binned. It's gone. That won't stop me buying another, if I want to (and that'll be my decision!), but it does remove the immediate possibility of a relapse. It's certainly gives me a sense of freedom, not to feel it pressing on my head. The old hairband left a furrow in my hair that had to be combed out. No more of that. 

So a cautious thumbs up. 

And Job Done on that particular New Year's Resolution!