How To Get Cher Hair…If You Dare
I can remember when Sonny and Cher premiered with their new variety show. Ed Sullivan aside, it was groundbreaking in that we were seeing a very glamorous young woman host a television show in primetime, and she became quite the rage. Sonny, her sidekick, didn’t have the charisma or ability to impress that his young wife seemed to radiate.
She was part Cherokee, and she had the hair to prove it; long, straight, shiny, blue-black hair to her slender waist. Her hair alone was enough to catapult them to the top of prime time television. Cher exuded sardonic sarcasm, which was the epitome of a modern woman who didn’t have a problem zinging her husband with sassy barbs. She even had the courage to “vamp” around the stage as a trampy character, which fit her well.
I would say Cher’s influence mainly manifested itself in the hair department. Being of Italian heritage, I had long, dark hair, so I thought it was easy for me to emulate her style. For purists such as me, I found out that wasn’t exactly true. I happened to have a slight–and I mean really slight–wave to my hair, which was unacceptable. In order to rectify this hirsute handicap it was time to bring out high end remedies like curlers the size of coffee cans.
The routine was to wash your hair, comb out all the knots, then plop yourself on the toilet, put your head between your legs, and before passing out from the blood rushing to your head, brush your hair into a ponytail in the middle of the top of your head. Secure it with a rubber band from an envelope your Grandfather gave you from his desk. After sitting up and regaining your equilibrium, and waiting until your face changed back to a normal flesh tone, you would take one or two large curlers and put them in your hair.
In the case of needing two curlers, you would split the ponytail in half and roll up ½ of your hair onto each curler and secure it with a bobby pin the size of a number two pencil. The curlers were of the variety that included a coil of wire covered by grey netting that included thousands of plastic bristles that stuck out from the surface. They sort of resembled the wire mesh coils you see running along the top of the fences that surround penitentiaries. These bristles became a problem when you tried to get the curler out; many times it would get stuck and have to be yanked or worse yet, cut out.
In the morning expectation reigned; unrolling those curlers was done with the same measure of anticipation you might experience at a wedding when the bride first appears at the top of the aisle. The only difference was that more often than not, your hair was still wet on the ends, which kind of defeated the purpose to begin with. The center of the pony tail was always wet, that was a given, and not only that but that thick rubber band with the black streaks on it had cut through some of the thinner hairs and certainly had moved your hairline up to the middle of your skull.
We have to remember that Cher Hair was the goal–pin straight, silky, a flowing drape of alluring adornment. Unfortunately most mornings, like a cake that flopped while baking, my hair did not resemble anything even close to Cher’s. I would have a large ridge circling my head from where the rubber band was all night, I would have more split ends than the day before thanks to that same rubber band, and the ends of my tresses that were wet sprang back into the original wave I had started out to get rid of when I began this complicated process. Not to worry, next step, orange juice cans.
I purchased two large cans of frozen, Tropicana orange juice. I went home, made up two pitchers, and cut the top and bottom out of the cans. I scrubbed them and used them that very night. I had heard from other Cher aficionados at my local high school that that was my problem, wrong paraphernalia. I have to admit, those orange juice cans always had some sticky residue on the outside, but being anxious to attain Cher Hair, I disregarded this minor point and repeated the same scenario only this time empty Tropicana juice canisters became my tool of choice. The only difference in the morning was that my hair was stuck together in spots.
Now in the hallowed halls of secondary schizophrenia I had to hunt down a method that would transform me from a mere girl of 16 into a Cherokee Cher clone, and those diehard advisors rose to the surface like Ivory Soap with a tried and true method that couldn’t fail. It included wax paper, a towel, water, an ironing board and an iron…an iron? Yep, an iron was what transformed wavy or even curly tresses into Cher locks. I let my eyes run over the heads of the small group of girls that huddled around me clutching their three ring binders with peace signs and Cher stickers all over them and thought to myself, do I have waxed paper at home?
I did, and I was anxious to see the results. I set up the ironing board, got the iron, filled it with water and plugged it in. I gathered the other needed utensils of a brush, wax paper and towel-age. After the iron had a good amount of steam coming from the bottom I stooped down, put my hair on the board, brushed it out, laid a piece of waxed paper over it and then covered the wax paper with a towel and proceeded to iron my hair! When I removed the towel and the waxed paper viola, my hair was as straight as Cher’s, although it did smell a little burnt, who could complain?
So I had conquered the problem. Next day I was accepted into the Gypsies Tramps and Thieves, a group of girls be they red-headed and freckled, mousy brown with last names like Berkowitz, or blonds who were so pale that riding in the car gave them third degree burns, we all had Cher hair. We had found a way to transform ourselves into our icon with a few household items that gave us what all high school girls search for: the ability to fit in to a group of peers and the means to emulate their idol.
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