Long Hair: Realism

[cjsmith]

One of my pet peeves is authors, usually fantasy authors, who give a character enormously long luxurious hair and then never mention it when it would matter. They linger over descriptions of the protagonist they wish they could be, but when they put her (always her) in a situation where her hair would have to interact with something, somehow nothing happens. The laws of physics are suspended! They're wanking, these authors; they haven't done the simplest research.

People who haven't had buttlength hair may not know this stuff. (Authors who make shit up have no excuse not to ask around about it.)

There's a good reason you don't see many long-haired athletes. Consider an aikido roll. Imagine standing up with your knee or foot on your own braid. At least in a roll it's the hair-bearer's OWN knee; in a pin, often it's the other guy's knee. Exercise for the reader: list female protagonists with "a braid as thick as her wrist" who do hand-to-hand combat a lot.

My hair takes most of a day to dry. Blonde hair (beloved of fantasy authors) has the slenderest strands of any human hair type. According to one medical site I found in ten seconds on google, blondes also have the most numerous follicles. THIS HAIR TAKES A WHILE TO DRY. Put it in a ponytail, and my hair may not dry until my next shower. This is worth knowing if an author wants to describe the effects of a nice breeze half an hour after that dunking in the river.

Let's not talk in detail about jobs such as scooping the litterbox or cleaning up what the cat left on the carpet. I'll just say that a headband, ponytail, or braid does not keep a gal from having to wash the ends of her hair. What keeps that from happening is the habitual, nearly-unconscious shoulder and neck movements that keep the hair behind her back. If the character has these habitual movements ingrained, Mr. Right is not going to catch his first sight of her with her hair caressing her breasts.

How about that old squeeze-through-the-narrow-window-in-a-stone-castle trick? If the loose hair is not in her eyes, it's in between the shoulders or hips and the stone. It's gonna hurt. Somehow, though, what stings afterward is a knee. Go figure. (I won't ask why they all seem to go headfirst. You'd think after sequel number two or three one of these chicks would learn.)

I love this one: the heroine of a romance novel whose hair is drying while "spread out around her head in a fan on the pillow". Just how far away from the headboard is this pillow? Two and a half feet? Maybe our heroine is only three feet tall.

And how come the wind never blows hair into the owner's face? Do proper long-tressed maidens or mage students have built-in headwinds?

Okay, I'll stop now...

Comments

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I'm getting my hair cut. I keep waking up with it wrapped around my neck. If I'm going to be that restless I either have to get it cut or resign myself to the fact that one night I'm going to strangle myself.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I think I fling mine out to the side when I sleep, although I do sometimes wake up lying on it.

I once dated a gal with waist-length hair who slept in a waterbed. She had this whole protocol for sitting up...

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

She had this whole protocol for sitting up...

*begins to make a smart-ass comment, decides better of it, wanders off*

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Well said. I can't say I've missed what little length I gave up my last hair styling, I certainly don't begrudge you yours.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

;-)

Seriously though. A waterbed offers incredible possibilities for getting your hair wedged between your body and the bed, 'cause the dang bed is @#$ing everywhere.

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Sounds like hell to me!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

What are some of the things you noticed with shoulderblade-length hair that don't happen now?

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

With the changes I've had, the hair ends up in my eyes less often when I'm photographing, in my mouth less when I'm driving, an dit doesn't seem as limp and dead as it used to. On the other hand, the back of my neck gets sunburned more easily.

And my hair was nowhere the length of yours.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Yup, yup, yup.

I loved my long hair. In theory.

When I was a kid, I could sit on it in braids. Of course, it took forever for those braids to happen. Even though I slept in them, it still took forever to brush my hair in the morning and re-braid.

Last year, I chopped off my long hair again. (It came to the middle of my back.) Yeah, I was loving how palecur would accidentally wake me up in the middle of the night when his hand would got caught in the tangles. I'd braid it, but as when I had been a child, it was lumpy.

And oh my, all the potions I had to use to keep it strong and healthy looking! Even with regular haircuts, I still spend less than when I was buying Sebastian products every damned week. I *heart* Suave. And oh, how nice to be able to color my hair using only one box of color instead of two or three! Dye is damaging my hair? Who cares when I'm going to cut it again in a month?

I do like long hair, but I sure didn't like *having* long hair. These days, when I'm in a hurry but need to look good for work, I just put a little mousse into while it's still wet then brush it out in the parking lot when I get to the office. Don't feel like doing anything with it, but don't want it in my face? Do nothing. When it was long, I had to put it in ponytails or braids.

Long hair is gorgeous, but it's also a responsibility.

[layer.livejournal.com]

not so long ago, i had hair down past my butt. it used to get caught in the electric car windows every time i rolled them up. i basically wound up wearing it up every day. after years i was like, if i'm going to wear it that short i should cut it that short. it was literally a huge weight off my shoulders.

besides my hair is way too fine to look good long.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

*Grin* This is fun...

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Mine seems to stay out from under me pretty well when it's in a ponytail...but then I sleep on my side.

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

So you've been reading the latest Laurell K. Hamilton tome, too?

True story: many years ago I was dating someone with lovely long (albeit not ankle-length) blonde hair, which I often expressed admiration of. She came back from Xmas vacation considerably shorn, and I expressed my profound distress over this state of affairs... at which point she reached into her suitcase, pulled out the missing hair nicely bundled up with rubber bands, and handed it to me.

Couldn't think of a good response - I had what I'd said I wanted, after all. Now that was a teaching moment :-)

Long-haired Aikido?

[zyxwvut.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know it's a liability -- and mine isn't even waist-length or whatever.

Z

P.S.: When called up to do "grabs against closed-eyed nage" on my test (special request), BigKid did take a big handful of braid. %-}

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

When my hair was almost waist-length, I would get it caught in the car window when closing it, Dan would tug on it when he'd put his hand on my back, and it took FOREVER to dry if I didn't use the blow dryer.

But I've almost never braided it, and I never had issues sleeping on it. *shrug*

I'm growing mine back out. It's just past my shoulders at this point. Not sure how long I'm going to let it get this time.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

They're wanking, these authors; they haven't done the simplest research.

Yeah, as much as I adore really, really long hair from an aesthetic point of view, I think you're right. =Also, where fiction is concerned. You'd think authors would realize they've got their own Isadora Duncan issues, with hair rather than a scarf, but the effect would be the same. :-)

[branwynelf.livejournal.com]

And to think my rant has always been about the size of the heroine's breasts and the lack of interference of said bodyparts when she uses a longbow, crawls through a tiny hole, finds herself in a dungeon in a dirty sack yet manages to run down the corridor and then down a large flight of stairs with no mention of having to grab a tit in each hand to stop the painful bouncing.

I'm not even that large-breasted and it makes me wince to think of running down stairs with no support!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Mine stays out from under me too. I sleep with it in a ponytail. I roll over a lot, and I think I have developed habits that flip it out onto the pillow before I turn.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

If it had grown much longer, it might have started to stay out of your mouth. I almost never get hair in my mouth. (Eyes, yes.)

Was yours long enough to get caught in car doors?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's another GOOD rant. I grab myself in both hands when going down stairs. I gotta! And I'm fond of saying that when I jog I need the "Gothic Flying Buttresses Concrete Bra". If only they made such a thing. I think authors who make a point of what enormous knockers the character has are probably small-breasted themselves. (Perhaps vice versa, too, if I expand that to the whole body type. Slender, small-breasted waif-like character who never gets cold and is strong as an ox? Hmm.)

I also love how no female protagonist of any genre fiction book I have ever had the pleasure to encounter HAS CRAMPS. Most of 'em don't even BLEED. The female authors, at least, should know better!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I like my long hair, don't get me wrong. I have all the little habits for managing it. I never have to get haircuts, use mousse, figure out whether it'll dry pointing straight up, make sure my part is okay after I've made it... I'll miss my hair if I cut it. But c'mon, folks, if you're going to make shit up, take the consequences with it, both the good and the bad.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ooooo, yes, that pulling-and-slightly-stinging sensation when someone comes up and rubs my back. It's unpleasant enough for me that I move my body away. I can only surmise that this is pleasant for the other person, because people keep doing it. I have started to develop a habit of getting my hair out of the way when someone I don't know extends a hand. The guy (yes, always a guy) usually looks at me funny, but there's a bonus: that's often when he clues in that what *I* want might not be what *he* wants.

[branwynelf.livejournal.com]

Heh - I ran across that in the last month or so. I was reading a book with a female character on some sort of quest or something and it went on for months ... and I wondered "I wonder what she's doing during her menses." *grin*

I've noticed that characters rarely go to the bathroom either - unless the bathroom has some specific function to the plot.

Re: Long-haired Aikido?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Impressive how a good grab of hair can really move the head around, too!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's not one of the authors I was thinking of... maybe I should go read her to get more rant material. :-)

I love that story! I have actually threatened to do this with (properly-preserved results of) a breast reduction.