Hair - Herbal Hena To Hibiscus Hues !

Once upon a time, black, shiny hair were considered to be the barometer of your health, and the dull, light brown and dry hair meant the person is not having proper diet.  Today, the rules seem to have changed.  Brown and burgundy have become the new black.

Hena - The Natural Colour:

Earlier, women having grey hair would colour them with henna, mixed with various natural kitchen items to make them look black, orangish, or brown.  Don't believe me? Add boiled tea water or boiled coffee water to hena powder and see the effect. Also add curd, egg, and black pepper powder for relief from dandruff.  Also, cheap chemical dyes were also sold freely in market.  And people, especially women would buy them, as they were sold as herbal dyes. And it goes without saying that such products had a bad effect on the hair growth.

In those days colouring was done only if you have greys and women would generally shy away from telling that they apply hena on their hair, would also hide those tell tale signs of the hena marks on the forehead and near the ears!

Hair Colour - The Hot Trend :

And now, girls, in college, want to colour their hair and they do it too.  Streaking, highlighting, or colouring full head, take your pick. Choose from hues like light brown, burgundy, chestnut brown, etc.,  depending on your skin colour from international brands and join the hep club.  And then don't forget to buy a shampoo and conditioner especially for coloured hair.  And of course, you have to do touching (colour the uncoloured hair as it grows from the roots) to look great!  Be it colouring, straightening or perming, to look great you have to pay a big price too.  As they say, there are no free lunches!!

Greys are graceful :

It's not that coloured hair only look nice. Some women carry grey hair with grace.  I have always admired Indian actor Nafisa Ali, with her grey streak of hair.  She looks so beautiful with her healthy skin and fit body, and so active in social activities.  In fact, I like the picture of my co-blogger Sharbouri for this very reason, she looks lovely!

Hair And Money

Oh My God! this one pinches me badly.  The hair treatments (hair spa, olive oil massage by specialist etc), hair cuts, hair settings for occasions (blow dry, curling, rollers, buns and knots), chemical treatments of hair (perming, straightening, colouring etc) and the hair products for such coloured (damaged) hair (shampoos, conditioners, serums, leave in serums, special oils) etc are so expensive, can range from Rs 500-10,000, (oops! haven't yet downloaded the new Rupee symbol) depending on various things.  Beauty comes with a price tag!

Do hair style has something do with women's mind?

I think so.  First, if we see the evolution of hair styles in India, we see two plaits were synonimous of a teenager, graduating to one plait, a mature girl, and low bun would be donned by married women, with a palloo tucked to it. 

With exposure to new trends, with cinema actors being our models, of course fashion magazines, media, the desire to look good has increased. 

Hair is just one part of looking good, but the changing trend from low buns to today's open hair, I see it as women's sense of freedom from those set rules about dressing one's hair. We do form impressions about a woman seeing her hair style. I think, letting your hair down, this phrase came from the fact that enjoing yourself, having fun somehow means letting go of your hair in a free fall, a free wave!

By the way, while I was searching for 'indian women in buns' pics for my posts, I noticed that, these were rare.  More of western celebrities donned a bun or a knot than Indian beauties.  Shows the trend!

Have a colourful time!

RESTLESS

(If you liked this post then you'll like this and this too!)

PS: image on top courtesy fineartamerica.com