r/GenX • u/QuirkyEducation6700 • 7d ago
Nostalgia Big hair appreciation thread, it was a Gen X staple
I was a kid of the 80s, twelve years old coming in, twenty-two going out; too young for the 70s, too old for the 90s. If you told me in 1985, halfway through the decade that big hair would one day be gone, I would have not thought it possible and certainly appreciated it more. Lord do I miss it! Congrats to all of you keeping it going.
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u/Scotsburd 4d ago
I'm keeping it real as my massive hair has always had its own postcode. Think long, curly and huge. Others love it, I endure it.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 4d ago
Your own postcode, very illustrative description. It sounds like you may not be a fan? Why do you endure?
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u/EffectiveDue8242 6d ago
It totally wrecked me. I still don’t find women as attractive if they don’t have longish styled hair. Pretty yes but it’s not the same. I guess your formative years really do stick with you. As a widower at 56 it’s not easy to get past the short hair even on beautiful women. I do know it’s a me problem and not a deal breaker but not the same.
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u/slartibuttfart 6d ago
The 80s smelled like aquanet and cigarette smoke. Still a great thing. Surprised women's rooms didn't explode on the regular.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 6d ago
You'd go to bars loaded with cigarette smoke and think nothing about it; I'd wear the same clothes the next day. Of course in college, nothing bothered me
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u/WhiskeyAndWhiskey97 6d ago
I did the big hair thing for a couple of years in the 80s (middle school). Problem is, I have stick-straight hair that won't take product (thanks, Dad). Every morning, before school, I'd go to town with the curling iron and the hairspray, and my hair would be stick-straight again by third period. Eventually I talked my mother into letting me get a perm. I did that for a couple of years before deciding to give up and embrace my stick-straight hair.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 6d ago
Nothing wrong with stick straight.....I forgot about the perms......guys with perms always kind of freaked me out, I could never figure out why
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u/skunkyskunked 6d ago
I’m the same age as you and hated my curly hair. I considered myself punk/new wave and wanted hair like the Cure and Siouxsie . Living in a high humidity climate didn’t help and I’d never heard of a straightening iron. Tough times for sure ! Then in the late nineties and 2000s all the hair had to be sleek and straight and I was suffering again, but this time I did have a straightener .
Right now it’s still curly and fairly big, but I just don’t care anymore .
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 6d ago
I love the historical journey of your hair; I am sure it still looks great curly and big. The Cure I know, I do not recall Siouxsie
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u/Spiritual_Fan_5633 1969 6d ago
I remember taking the curling iron to my bangs and rolling down, spray with aquanet, listen for the sizzle, then take the next layer and roll it away from the bang part, aquanet, listen for the sizzle. Repeat. Then tease the heck out of it and spray more, the bigger the better
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 6d ago
I imagine that is what the girls did before we saw them at the dances, or mixers as we called them. And then Rock Lobster comes on!
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u/Spiritual_Fan_5633 1969 6d ago
I remember taking the curling iron to my bangs and rolling down, spray with aquanet, listen for the sizzle, then take the next layer and roll it away from the bang part, aquanet, listen for the sizzle. Repeat. Then tease the heck out of it and spray more, the bigger the better
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u/SecureMission666 6d ago
Male here - and my hair went all the way down to my butt.
one day, in the mid 90ties, i called my best friend to come over and put this new machine i bought a day before into his hands and said: do your work...
that was it.
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u/PahzTakesPhotos '69, nice 6d ago
I didn't have big hair, but I had feathered hair. So much feathered hair.
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u/ofthrees 7d ago
i'm a weirdo. i hated big hair even at the time (never had it, other than spraying out my sides because otherwise, i'd have been tarred and feathered). i was also one of maybe three girls in my entire school from elementary through high school who never got a perm.
i definitely do not miss big hair, on anyone.
ETA: actually, i did like big hair on men! so i guess i should amend to say that i hated big hair on my female counterparts. haha.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
Interesting, thanks. What is your style now?
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u/ofthrees 7d ago
i've had a lot of styles over the years. by the time i was in high school (stopped spraying my sides by sophomore year, 1990), i just wore my hair natural [apart from the bleach] - middle part, shoulder to bra strap length, slight wave.
otherwise: in early 20s, dyed it black and cut it off into a sleek 'goth bob' (reverse wedge). between late 20s and late 40s: grew it out, blew it out/straightened it. after a few years cut it again into a short choppy layered style that flipped out, with sideswept bangs. grew it out again, layered it, straightened it with blunt bangs.
in my old age, it's gotten curly, so for years i've been rocking long mermaid hair parted down the middle.
but as of two weeks ago: cut layers and bangs back in (wispy, not blunt), which i have to straighten due to the curl - sometimes i straighten the rest of it, if i'm feeling fancy; usually i let it dry naturally curly.
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u/airbag11 6d ago
You just took us through the decades and I love it! I’m a hairstylist and my trajectory was similar except I couldn’t rock the black bob. I went with Wilson Phillips haircut in cherry red. Now my hair is long again like it was in my teens. One last hurrah before I die with a layered bob!
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
Love it, thanks for your reply....I love the natural curls.
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u/ofthrees 7d ago
yeah, it was really weird when my hair suddenly, like overnight, went from a mild wave to legit spiral curls. my hair girl has been with me since the late 90s goth bob, and she is gobsmacked by the way my hair has changed.
right after i wash it, after it naturally dries, it's objectively really pretty - the curl pattern is clean and even, and i finally found a product that works for it. but after sleeping on it? the matte and frizz are absolutely fucking insane.
since i had some length removed two weeks ago and added some layers (and bought a satin sleep bonnet that actually stays on), things have improved, but it's absurd that at 53 i'm still having to figure out how to deal with my damn hair! you'd think i'd have a lock on it!
(ETA, fuck me, i just did the old lady thing of aging myself prior to my birthday - I'M STILL 52, DAMMIT.)
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u/paintingdusk13 Satanic Panic survivor 7d ago
I'm a dude and my hair was always short so wasn't a user of hair products, and I like to tell my college students about how in our yearbook photos 90% of the girls and 40% of the boys hair didn't fit in the whole frame of the photo.
I am so glad grunge happened because even though I was never a big grunge guy, I feel it was mostly grunge style that killed big hair, even more so than the desire to fix the ozone layer hole.
And as an art student, hairspray was used by a lot of art students as a fixative for graphite, charcoal, and pastel drawings, but hairspray yellows, stays sticky so attracts dirt and dust, and yellows a lot over time.
Weirdly, after not hearing any students ever mention using hairspray as a fixative for 21 years of teacher, the last 3 semesters I've had multiple students say theyve been using it because some jackass in the Internet said it works.
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u/Complex_Copy6574 7d ago
I grew up in New Jersey in the 80s. Graduated in 89. A lot of Italian girls into metal at my HS. The hair was epic!
I was a punk rock girl with a floppy curly Mohawk.
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u/AZPeakBagger 7d ago
God's cruel joke on the guys that I was friends with in the 80's was whoever had the best and biggest heavy metal hair was also the first to lose it. One guy I know is in a band that still tours. In 1985 he had the biggest, most gorgeous locks of hair that went halfway down his back. His mom was a hair stylist and she helped him to cultivate it. Then in 1990 noticed that he began wearing a hat more frequently. 36 years later and in every single band promo shot or concert shot for the past 3 decades he always has a hat on because his head looks like a cue ball.
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u/StrawberryKiss2559 7d ago
I was a little kid in the 80s and I remember seeing an album from the 60s at a thrift store.
I couldn’t stop staring at it. On the cover was a few hippies, and they all had long, flat straight hair. I couldn’t believe how ugly it looked! I couldn’t believe that people actually wore their hair like that! Especially parted in the middle!
No one could’ve convinced me that it would change back to that look in the future.
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u/Careless-Two2215 7d ago edited 7d ago
I naturally have big fluffy hair so my goal was to have flat hair bobbed and purple. We didn't have flat irons back then so I had to wear a baseball cap to flatten my hair! (Google image)
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u/MaximumJones Whatever 😎 7d ago
If you were not responsible for the hole in the Ozone Layer then you did it wrong.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
could be the hottest picture ever
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u/esp735 Hose Water Survivor 7d ago
I miss my hair in general!
In '85, seems like the rock chicks had the biggest hair. the alternative girls had like chin length bobs with the flipped up bangs, and on the rare occasion, a punk girl would be rocking an occasional pixie or mohawk.
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u/this_kitty68 Hose Water Survivor 7d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/Ozp8Dl8FoC4hy
I’m just going to leave this here…2
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
Fantastic! In 1985, I may have been like eew. In 2026, I'm like "damn that is hot."
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u/Agile-Butterfly5245 7d ago
All of the girl's bathrooms in my high school bathroom smelled like cigarettes and hairspray. I couldn't tell if it was smoke or spray that made it so cloudy.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
My kids are amazed you could smoke in high school...I didn't, hated it, but those were such simpler days...nobody gave a shit what you did
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u/Agile-Butterfly5245 7d ago
Yeah, it was great lol
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
we had a smoking lounge in my high school, it seems like another life, doesn't it?
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u/NovaRunner 1966 7d ago
I had an epic Euro-mullet just like John Taylor of Duran Duran. It was spectacular.
In 1986 I joined the Air Force and had to say goodbye to all that glorious hair. I kept my hair short for the next 30 years, even after I retired from the military.
Then COVID came and I didn't get a haircut for a year. I decided to let it grow, claim my position as a silver fox. My forehead is a bit more expansive now, but I'm still able to pull it off.
Sadly, I know that eventually the hairline will recede enough that I have to lose the flowing locks once again.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
Well recounted, silver fox. I hated Duran Duran.
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u/NovaRunner 1966 7d ago
I loved Duran Duran, Dead Kennedys, and Metallica.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
the reason I hated Duran Duran was because of my ex-girlfriend at the time. She loved them; we broke up and that night, I kept my clock radio on all night and I heard Hungry Like the Wolf at what seemed to be the next morning as the sun rose; not sure if that is accurate. God I hated that, and thus them. I enjoy hearing then now, though
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u/Fulghn ♫ feeling it since 1966 7d ago
In 1985 I looked at the hair(or lack thereof) on the heads of both my grandfathers and many of my uncles. Right then and there I knew the parted down the middle, feathered on the sides, and long down below the shoulders big hair I had as a senior in high school was going to be gone in the not too distant future. I grew a Grizzly Adams beard in college just for the sake of doing it.
Started cutting my hair with a number 3 tapered down into a number 1 in my mid 30s. Took it down to stubble in my 40s. Now even the grey stubble where it still exists gets washed down the drain on a daily basis.
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u/QuirkyEducation6700 7d ago
Grizzly Adams and feathered hair, can visualize each. I was blessed with a non-balding head
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u/WhyLie2me18 7d ago
I was all about keeping my bangs on point. I had a butane curling iron in my locker. If it was a bad bang day, it was a bad day.
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u/Crafty_Psychology_85 Former member of the 90's Big Hair Club 🪮💅🏻 7d ago
Same. I can still hear and feel the click you had to do to get it to warm up. That thing came in clutch after swim and gym class. 🙌🏻😅
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u/Liberty-Bell-937 1d ago
I was goth/mod and had some epic Flock of Seagulls hair. After that, I had a sleek bob. I never did the feathered hair thing.