Men With Long Hair

Part 2 - Caring for Long Hair

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Why Now Worry About Hair Care?
Now that you're a longhair or you plan to be, care of your hair is important. As a shorthaired guy, you probably thought your hair was indestructible. And it practically was. The oldest hair fragment on your head, at the tips of your two-inch-long (5 cm) locks was a mere four months old.

Think back to when you once had a favorite pair of jeans. If you wore them every day, you were probably lucky to see them last a year. Well, you do wear your hair every day, flexing it back and forth constantly. It is bleached by the sun and blown by the wind. It is washed and dried, and combed. All of these things subject it to wear and tear. If, like the threads in those jeans, your hair strands were to be beat to a pulp in a year's time, your hair would never get more than six inches (15 cm) from your scalp, because the hair at that distance out is a year old. So the message is, as a longhair you must pay attention to your hair. You want to take care of it. You want it to last long enough to die its natural death - to reach terminal length.

Before discussing care of hair, let's just talk about human hair a bit.

The Human Head of Hair
The head of hair that we have is unique among the animals on this planet. Sure, other animals have hair on their head, but none grow it all over the top and back of the head to a length of three feet (90 cm)! So long hair is a very human trait.

Hair is important to humans in the wild. Any hiker or outdoorsman will tell you a human loses far more heat from his head than from any other part of the body. Hair provides insulation for that vulnerable area. It protects it from sun too. It directs rain promptly off the head channeling it right on past the eyes even, in front. Also, long hair streaming out in the wind around your head forms a wind shear boundary, allowing a warm air mass to accumulate near your head.

When I was shorthaired, I was always the one to be coldest in a group. With the long hair and beard, I'm now the one often out in a T-shirt on days others are wearing light jackets. The hair made a difference of a whole layer of clothing, so the insulation value of hair is real. (You can mostly defeat this insulation quality of long hair by tying it into a pony tail. And if your hair blossoms out all over your back below the hair tie, you can use multiple ties along your pony tail, or do a braid, to minimize hair contact with your back and keep it cool. These things are good to know, since growing long hair is a project spanning many years, and to be a longhair, you will have to have long hair in the summer.)

The body has a natural way to care for this valuable resource. It provides an oil to constantly nourish the hair and keep it supple. This oil is secreted by the scalp. This oil is also able to survive the way humans in the wild wash their hair - in cool or lukewarm rain or streams.

Two Kinds of Hair - Straight and Curly
Of course guys' hair falls on a continuum, ranging from very straight to very curly, with wavy hair in between. It will be helpful, though, to look at typical hair at these two extremes, "straight" and "curly". Different approaches often apply, and you can read them and decide what is right for you.

Straight hair is great for length! Every inch of hair you grow heads for your belt, and then for the floor. As a straight haired guy, you'll have strong strands that will probably reach their full length potential as years go by. When you run a comb through your hair you'll run into less tangles, and you can even brush your hair if you want, which may give it more body and shine, since brushing really pulls the oil from your scalp down into your strands. You may yearn for more body for your hair, because your straight hair can be limp, compared to that of your curly-haired friends. But man, can you grow hair long!

Curls are great for bulk! No expensive perms for you! And maybe no salon trims, because curls are easy to cut. What you lose by having more volume up top, of course, is volume down below. You don't get as much length. Your hair grows around in spirals and takes forever to reach mid-back, or wherever you want it to go. Your curls trap air pockets and are great insulation in cold weather. You may not be able to get a brush though your hair, and you may not even want to, because it will just make your hair frizzy. You'll probably use a wide-toothed comb such as an Afro pick, and you may want to minimize combing as well, to keep the frizz factor at bay. Unlike your straight haired friends, you will look longhaired from every angle, because hair will be all around your head where people always see it!

Whichever hair type you have, celebrate it! Both look great. Think long and hard before trying to change what you have. Any time you go for that, you will damage your hair some.

With all this in mind, let us now talk about caring for your hair.

A Word About Barbers, Beauticians, and Care Products
First it should be said that there are only two ways that barbers and beauticians make money:

By cutting your hair.
By selling you chemicals to put on it.
Either of these things can devastate your long hair. These people do not always have your hair's interest at heart. So be very careful.
When it comes to trims, longhairs have lost several inches (a dozen centimeters) at the hands of haircutters who've said they would only take off a fraction of an inch (a few millimeters) to "neaten up the bottom" or "take off split ends". Do not trust anyone to cut your hair unless you trust him absolutely. A year's growth can end up on some jerk's floor in fifteen minutes. (We will talk about whether such trims are really necessary - they often aren't - later on.)

When it comes to chemicals, they are generally designed to make your hair look great the day they are applied and maybe the day after. What they do to your hair long-term is of little concern to their manufacturers, though this will be of great concern to you. What this situation means to you is that the routine that makes your hair look the best for the moment may not be the routine that is best for it in the long run. So you may have to weigh priorities and make choices.

Why Wash Your Hair?
You've always been told you ought to wash your hair, but as a longhair you need to look at why.

We've mentioned how your hair is lubricated with oil from your scalp. Long hair draws this oil away from your scalp, but some people create too much, and the excess needs to be washed away. Also, the oil that ends up in your hair dries out and breaks down after a day or two, and then it no longer lubricates. The oil in your hair also traps airborne dirt, and once that happens it no longer lubricates. You need to get the old oil and its dirt out of your hair so newly created oil can flow down and take its place.


Shampoos and Other Stuff
Soaps and shampoos will strip all the natural oil and dirt out of your hair, but they will remove all of the oil from your scalp, too. This deprives your hair of newly created oil and leaves your hair dry, brittle, and unlubricated. This makes strands far more apt to tangle and break, and it stresses your hair, shortening its life out at the ends. So one must choose such products with care.

Different products work for different people, but in general, don't subject your hair to any more stress than necessary. Anything that perms it, straightens it, bleaches it, or dissolves all the dandruff in it, is bound to subject your hair to stress. So use such products sparingly if at all.

A man who wants his hair to last a while wants a mild shampoo, but finding one is not easy, because when you go to the drugstore and look at the labels, none will say they are harsh! To rule some out and pick others, you'll need to ask around. Be sure you ask people with long hair.

One means to protect your hair from the effects of shampoos is simply to wash your hair with them less often. If you cut the number of your shampooings in half, you cut in half the stress upon your hair due to shampooings. As a shorthaired person, you perhaps washed your hair every day, and you maybe even discovered your scalp would itch if you didn't. Well, as a longhair, your hair will be drawing the oil off your scalp because you have enough hair to absorb it, and no itchy buildup will occur. And the scalp is different from areas such as the underarms - it does not generate a strong odor. So there is no reason to wash your hair every day. A few longhairs do, but most go for every two to three days, and some find that what suits their hair best is once a week. Pay attention to your hair, and you will find what works best for you.

If you let "itching" be your clue for a wash, don't let itching in short-haired areas such as your sideburns or beard prompt you to wash your long hair. As short-haired areas, those will still need frequent washing as always, though your long hair will not. For example, I wash my beard and mustache daily, but my hair can go much longer between washings before it itches.

Some men are blessed with way too much oil, and they need to apply a good washing to their hair frequently to keep the oil in check. By applying warmer water and more shampoo, this is easy to do. Those men are a minority though. Most longhaired men need to keep their hair from getting too dry, and we will now focus our attention on techniques to preserve the oil in your hair.

One instruction you should always ignore is the one on most shampoo bottles to "rinse, lather, repeat". Once is enough! Even the mildest of shampoos when used once will take more of the oils out of your hair than most longhairs would like, so many of us use a "conditioner", which is really just a concoction to return to the hair much of what we just stripped out of it. My experience has been, though, that no conditioner makes my hair as supple and lubricated as good old natural scalp oil. Conditioners may perform better for a few hours, and they may briefly look better, but they dry out and deteriorate faster than does natural oil.

If you use a conditioner, be aware that to some extent conditioners are washed out by hotter water just as oil is. After applying a conditioner you may wish to rinse it out with cooler water than, say, you shampooed with.

Always consider washing your hair in as mild a solution as possible. You can dilute shampoo in your hand a bit before applying it. The closer what you put on your head resembles cool rain water, the better off your hair will be. You may even choose to just wash in water sometimes.


Washing Just in Water
We should talk about washing in water here because with long hair doing so is a bit of an art. Even if you normally use shampoo, you may be on a hiking trip or in some other situation where you won't have access to hair care products. Sometimes your hair may still be clean, but you want the neat look that "having just washed" will bring. These are all times you will want to just wash in water, so you need to know how to best do that. There are even some longhairs who have forsaken shampoo altogether and only wash in cool or lukewarm water. To maximize oil retention, and oil distribution to the ends of the hair, here are some tips if you want to wash in water:

Think rain. Rain is cool and monsoons are rare. So don't treat your hair like it is in the dishwasher. Cool gentle rain is how nature loosens the oil and moves it down your strands. Hot water and torrents will go too far, taking the oil off your head and down the drain.
Massage your scalp with your fingers under cool falling water. This will help move the oil off your scalp and into your hair. This can sometimes take just a few hands full of water. For maximum oil retention, only wet your hair where it has scalp underneath (the idea is to wet your scalp as well as your hair), and apply handfuls of water there just until water starts to readily drip off your ends.
Don't try to wash your ends. They will get more than enough from what you do to your scalp. Everything you do there runs down.
Minimize towel drying. Water that evaporates on your hair will leave oil behind. Water that is soaked up into the towel will take oil with it.
Plan ahead when you want to wash your hair. It takes a couple of hours to dry with this method. Also, a thin layer of oil will at first be left on the outside of your hair strands, and it takes several hours for it to be absorbed into them. Until this happens, your hair will look greasy, even though it is not. One thing you can do with that oil layer is "polish it off" by running your hands down over your hair several times, after it has dried. This will give your hair a very nice sheen. All this adds up to the need to wash your hair at least an hour, and preferably two, before you will be going out.
There is no reason you can't mix methods. Shampooing sometimes, and washing in water other times, is of course perfectly okay. You can opt to apply a conditioner after either method if you like. And some of the techniques used in washing with water can also be applied when shampooing to minimize hair damage.


Judging Different Routines
The best time to judge a care routine is when you are detangling. If your hair strands are strong and most tangles slip free, your hair is in good condition and you are doing things right. You have a right to expect both of those things. Some conditioners, for example, will make your hair as tough as plastic, but every tangle will become a hopeless knot that requires breakage to remove. Some conditioners will make your hair feel really silky, but it will be dry and tangles will also knot. Neither of those situations are acceptable.

Anti-dandruff shampoo is strong stuff. Think about using it sparingly, or not at all. Wearing light-colored shirts is an alternative to constantly assaulting your hair with this stuff, should you be a guy prone to flaking. Since longhairs have less grease on their scalps, you might find your flaking to be greatly reduced from what you found in your short-haired days, and dandruff may have become a non-issue for you. So at least lay off the anti-dandruff stuff to find out.

If your hair becomes particularly dry, split, or tangly, consider it a wakeup call. Your hair isn't going to grow much longer than that, until you deal with the problem! You may wish to consult with a beautician, particularly one who specializes in hair like yours, if such a person can be found. But be wary. Some shops claim a specialty just to get people through the door, and frequently the people manning the chairs are not the "specialist" anyway. Rely not on ads but on another longhair's recommendation if you go this route, and see the particular person he recommends.

Another option is to go "as low-impact as possible" (wash infrequently in water) for a couple of weeks. Your hair almost certainly will improve if you do this. Then cautiously add other things in sparingly, observing how your hair detangles after each experiment you make.

Human hair is so varied on different individuals that a myriad of products and other options are available for its care. What works for someone else may be exactly what your hair does not need, so don't take what works on someone else too seriously. You have to take charge and experiment yourself, to find out what is best for you.

And finally, consider beginning to take care of your hair the day you decide to become a longhair. The short hair you are staring at that day will someday be the ends of your long hair, and you want it to last. So don't wait until your hair is long to start caring for it. It may well be too late then, for those ends of your hair.

What About Split Ends?
Besides making the changes we discussed above to minimize hair damage in general, there are these three things you can do specifically about split ends:

Snip off the ends of all of your hair strands, thus snipping off the strands with split ends at the same time. This is the fastest way to snip, but it deprives you of length, and haircutters are notorious for getting carried away with this one.
Go through your hair strands yourself one by one and just snip those with split ends. This takes a lot of time, but spares you any significant loss of length.
Do nothing.
An occasional longhair and a heck of a lot of beauticians will tell you that splits will travel rapidly up your hair and make your hair actually get shorter. I even had one beautician tell me that my hairs would split all the way up to the roots and I'd then be bald! Well, I didn't let him cut on my hair, and it didn't happen.
Quite a few guys with really long hair ignore split ends altogether. They say that one side of the split soon breaks off and then the hair continues to dry out and soon the other side does, leaving a strand with a broken end but no traveling split. They also feel a general trimming deprives nearby unsplit and never-cut strands of their natural tapered ends, actually encouraging future splits.

Probably the best thing to do about splits is improve the condition of your hair so they don't continue to happen. They tend to occur in that same dry, scratchy, tangly hair that tells us at detangling time that it needs our immediate attention.

What About Tangles?
Yep! They're going to happen. You'll start noticing them after about a year of hair growth. The way to deal with them is to take your comb or fingers and work on the ends first. Then work your way up the hair strands closer to the scalp, but always combing downward of course. Here's why you want to do the ends first: Though the ends of your hair are where tangles usually develop, they are relatively easy to comb out, so long as you don't push other hairs into the tangle with your comb. If the ends have been untangled first, when you move further up into the hair and catch dead hairs, they will just be combed right on out past the ends and off your head.

If you have curly hair, it helps to pull down on clumps of it to make them straight while detangling them. Curls can often snarl in your comb even when they are not tangled.

Depending upon your hair, you may abandon the comb you used in your shorthaired days in favor of an Afro pick or brush. Most pocket combs don't have teeth long enough to extend through all the hair that a longhair has, and they have teeth so close together that they pull too much when passed through long hair. I have used a "detangling comb", for example, that is shaped like a pocket comb but is bigger. It had longer teeth and less of them per inch. And lately I've settled on an Afro pick. I'll continue to use the word "comb" here, though some longhairs will be using a different instrument.

Some longhairs swear by finger detangling. Fingers have less "teeth" than do a comb, so they are less speedy, but they feel tangles and almost always can let up pressure before breakage occurs. This means one can more quickly dispense with detangling at the ends and soon be running your fingers, positioned like long claws, from the scalp all the way down to the ends. Rapidly but gently doing this with both hands alternating, will quickly find tangles in an area, and the lower hand can serve to straighten curly hair while the upper one is still clawing. This method also distributes oil down into the ends of your strands much more rapidly than one can do with a comb or brush. Your fingers will carry oil much better than either.

Of course, if you are unable to get a tangle out, you have no choice but to remove it, which means snapping off hair strands, something that will always make you cringe a bit when you do it. But you should be able to get most tangles out without breaking hair. If you cannot, your hair is too dry and you need to take action.

Knots in a single strand are a special case. In effect, they are a tangle of one hair, and one that is impractical to untangle. The presence of one knot can cause future tangles, and the presence of many can make your hair look less even and thus frizzier. You are best off to trim any knotted strands just above the knot.


Various Strategies
The conventional wisdom is that you want to minimize combing out tangles while your hair is wet. Wet hair is much weaker, and you don't want to subject it to the stress. So always comb your hair or finger-detangle before showering, to remove all the tangles you can. But don't force any tangles out by breaking them at this point, because some tangles will come out when your hair is wet but not when it is dry.

Never brush your hair when it is wet, for the same reason just mentioned. Brushing puts too much stress on it. There are instances a longhair may need to comb his hair when it is wet, and I'll get to that below.

If your hair should become wet out in the wind, where it would get tangled too, resist the temptation to comb it to neaten it up unless it gets drenched and seems to comb easily. Damp hair can resist combing more than wet or dry, so wait until it dries first.

Extreme dust can soak up all your hair's oils, making it so dry and tangly that combing is impossible without causing too much hair damage. If your hair gets extremely dusty, you really can't detangle it or do anything else for it until you've first washed the dust out.

To catch tangles while they are small, you will want to comb or finger detangle your hair a few times per day, not just once or twice. How often you need to do this is something you will need to determine by experimentation. This should only take a few moments, and it can be done when you go to the rest room. It can also be done subtlely at other times if you feel the need. If you have curly hair, you may not want to comb your hair every time you do this, as I'll mention below. In that case, just check for tangles and tidy your hair up with your fingers.

If you have straight hair, combing or brushing can be beneficial in moving oils downward. One old wives tale is that one should brush such hair a hundred strokes a day. Some people say that's a bit much (after all, eventually brushing wears on your hair), while others feel it's about right. This probably depends most on how straight your hair is. Go for what makes your hair silky and easy to comb, but no more. Brushing or combing your hair this much should most certainly be done when it is dry.

If you have curly hair, brushing is tough to do and will probably make your hair very frizzy. You'll probably set aside the brush and be combing, but even that if overdone will make your hair frizzy.

When you first wash curly hair, the strands will cling together in hanging curls. Combing works to separate these, making more strands hang alone. In this situation they dry out faster, but they also occupy more space. Thus frizziness. Combing is also harder on curly hair because it fights the comb more, and as said earlier, curly hair is weaker than straight hair is. So if you have curly hair you may get more length and have neater hair if you minimize combing. Some curly-haired guys comb in the morning when their hair is wet, and not at all the rest of the day if they can help it. This is with the aim of minimizing frizziness.

If you are minimizing combing, you have to worry about getting the oils down into your strands another way, and you have to worry about how you are going to get out dead strands that have fallen out. It turns out that the oils move down into your strands best just after you have lightly washed your hair, and this lubricated moment is also the easiest time to get out dead strands. Also, while your hair is still wet, combing does not contribute much to frizziness, because the strands while wet continue to stick together. So the advice for you, as a curly haired guy, is indeed to comb your hair while it is wet! But start at the ends, as mentioned earlier, pull down on your hair to make it momentarily straight, work your way up patiently, and be very gentle. If your hair is too thick to comb all at once, tilt your head sideways and take on just a part of your mane at a time.

Often curly hair presents too much friction when it is dry, so you must get water or a conditioner in it just to lubricate it enough for the comb to slip through it. If it is water you are using, a medium amount of cool water is best - just enough to soak your hair but not wash out all the oils. Water does not lubricate much if all the oils are gone, and using hot water, or lots of cold water, will pretty much wash them all out. When combing your hair with water or a conditioner in it, remember that hair is weaker when it is moistened, so be gentle.

Later when we talk about keeping hair neat, we will talk about combing. If you are minimizing combing to prevent frizziness, you sure don't want to comb with an aim to achieve neatness! You'll be neatening up your hair with a little finger combing, and smoothing down your hair on the surface with your hands, instead. Keep that in mind when you get to those paragraphs.

If you're a longhair who looks like he slept in his hair in the morning (hey, you did!), and you don't plan to wash it some mornings, you may want to moisten the outside layer of your mane slightly before combing or hand-smoothing down the frizzies. Just get your hand wet and wipe it across your hair. Doing this a very few times will get your hair wet enough to neaten it up on the surface, without soaking it underneath. It will then dry promptly, and look neat, too! This trick can also be used during the day if your hair gets messed up.

Scratching
If you scratch your scalp with your fingernails, this will damage your hair. Massage any itch with the tips of your fingers instead. This technique is more apt to cause nearby hair to lift oil off your scalp, and oil is something your hair needs and your scalp doesn't. Actually, too much oil on the scalp is often the cause of itching, so using fingertips stops the itch better than using fingernails.

A Word About Diet
Keep in mind that the material to grow your hair and create its oils comes from what you eat. Some people embarking on "crash diets" have experienced significant hair loss. So a longhair should undertake such ventures in moderation, and he should consider getting a balanced diet to be a matter of importance.

Some longhairs have found vitamin supplements to be very beneficial to their hair. You may think, "I eat a balanced diet, so I don't need to take pills!" but keep these two things in mind:

The vitamins that help hair are not in fruits and vegetables. Your mother probably told you to "eat your fruits and vegetables, get your vitamins," like mine did. Don't think eating those things will give you all the vitamins you need. It turns out the vitamins that help your hair are not in fruits and vegetables at all. They are in meats, fish, and whole grains. These foods are avoided in quantities by quite a few people who see them as fattening or cholesterol-rich and thus unhealthy. Well, your hair to be healthy needs those things in your diet!
Some people do not process these vitamins well, and to get enough of them they'd have to eat lots of the foods that contain them, and we've just mentioned why you may not want to do that.
So the option, if you are not getting enough vitamins for your hair, will probably be to take pills. But how are you to know if you aren't getting enough of these vitamins in your diet already? One way to decide is to ask yourself whether you are happy with your growth rate and the ampleness of the scalp oil in your hair. If either of these things are lower than you would like, you might want to consider a dietary supplement.

Regular vitamin pills, which give you doses in the 100% range of the government estimates of requirements, will make up for vitamin deficiencies caused by dieting. If you're eating normally though, your diet probably has you in that range of intake already, and it may do your body fine, but the government is not interested in your hair. To really benefit your hair, if your diet is not already doing the trick for you, you will need pills that pack a heftier punch.

Brace yourself. Just as you'll learn with hair ties and such, these vitamins you'll discover are mostly marketed to women. They may be baby pink in color and in jars that have "female" written all over them, but take the pills anyway, dude. They won't turn your hair baby pink. Pills that longhairs have reported success with include these:

Prenatal formulations. These are designed for pregnant women, but they have many of the vitamins for hair in ample quantities.
Specific "for hair" formulations. GNC sells a series of vitamins called "Nourish Hair". Natrol makes a product called "For Women - Skin Hair Nails", which longhairs have reported not only speeds hair growth but also increases oil production while reducing scalp itchiness.
So these formulations do help some guys. The only way to find out if they will help you, if you're not happy with your hair's health and growth rate, is to try them.

Be aware that these vitamins will help all the hair on your body and also your nails. It takes a while to notice if growth has sped up on hair a foot (30 cm) long, but you may notice you are trimming your nails and beard more often right away. Because these things are short to begin with, the effect of the vitamins will first show up there, if they are having an effect on you. The dryness of your hair and itchiness of your scalp may also decrease, and if that is to occur, it should become apparent right away as well. Noticing whether the vitamins speed up growth of the hair on your head will, of course, come later.

Some of these formulations may make your urine bright yellow and smell funny. This is a byproduct produced when your body has assimilated the vitamins. Vitamin sellers report this as to be expected, and harmless.

Exercise common sense. The supplement market is not heavily regulated, and your liver and kidneys will be getting rid of whatever you ingest, day after day. Health-conscious longhairs may not want to embark on some plans, particularly when considering they are long term.


Help, I'm Shedding!
Quite a few new longhairs panic when they suddenly discover a lot of hair showing up in their comb, in their shower, or around their house. Their first thought is usually, "Can growing long hair cause me to go bald?"

Relax. It is normal to lose between 50 and 100 hair strands a day. You were losing them when you had short hair, and you are losing them now. If your hair strands are ten times as long now, this means you will shed a hair mass ten times as big each day as you used to.

You may think, "But I am not growing any more hair each day!" and that is true. So where is all that hair coming from? The answer is that you used to leave it on the barbershop floor. Now you are leaving it around your own house.

Routines, and Etiquette Considerations
As a shorthaired guy, you probably seldom combed your hair, and often you just gave it a swipe when coming indoors and went on with your business. You can't always do what long hair requires like that.

While you can quickly swipe a comb through your hair just about anywhere, people really don't like longer combing sessions to go on where they are eating, or where they are likely to be snowed on with whatever you might shed. If you are in such a place, you should do what ladies have always done, and retreat to the restroom.

You may have to make some routine changes. When coming inside after being outdoors in the wind, you may want to slip off to comb your hair right away, since messy hair indoors seems more out of place than it does outside.

And you will probably need to slip off to tend to your hair more frequently than you ever worried about your short hair. You will soon learn how often your hair needs care, but you do have to be aware of this possibility so you will keep an eye on your hair and make the right changes in routine.

We now look at just what one does to keep long hair neat, in Part 3.

Part 3 - Keeping Long Hair Neat

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Staying away from the Barber Shop
Just about all longhairs know the feeling. You tried to grow your hair but then it would get messy and you would give up. As you sat in the barber chair, you surely wondered, "How do people with long hair get their hair to look so nice, while mine looked messy even though it was still much shorter?"

Well, you were experiencing what we call the "awkward phase". Long hair is neat because its weight keeps it in place, and because you can tie it back or tie it down, too. And of course short hair is neat because there is nothing much there to get messed up. But there is an in-between stage that must be gone through to get long hair, and all one can do is to tough it out. Fortunately you are a man and men are good at being tough. So think about the great hair you are going to have later! And take one of the three steps we know of to restrain your wild hair in the meantime:

Put gunk on your hair.
Restrain your hair physically.
Frequently comb it.
"Gunk" can be in the form of creams or sprays. You'll find lots to choose from in the drugstore. Most longhairs don't like the feel or look of this stuff though, and opt for the second option, to physically restrain the hair, or the third, to apply frequent combing to keep it neat.

We'll talk about ways to physically restrain hair in a minute, but first a bit more about combing, and a bit about trimming.

Get used to combing. It may be all you can do, and it may be frequent during the awkward phase, but even when your hair is longer, you will find that no method of restraining your hair is perfect, and all of them must be supplemented by combing from time to time to get your hair neat again.

But forget trimming. Once you leave the awkward phase behind, the list of three ways to keep long hair neat will become two:


Restrain your hair physically.
Restrain it by virtue of its own weight.
You should be very aware of these two items in case someone suggests you neaten your hair by trimming, because trimming is not on the list. Not only is trimming not on the list, it runs counter to both the items that are. Trimming makes it tougher to restrain your hair physically because afterwards it is less apt to reach restraints such as hair ties. And trimming reduces the weight of your hair. So trimming does not make long hair neater. It makes it messier.

There are three specific instances for longhairs in which trimming has a place:


To even up hair way down behind the back.
To shorten hair way down behind the back if it has gotten too long.
Very sparingly, to trim split ends (though, as we've said, some dispute whether this serves any useful purpose).
Note that "trimming to spur growth" is not on the list. Incredibly, an old wives' tale has circulated for years that your hair will grow out faster if you trim a little off from time to time. Not only does this not make scientific sense, it has been debunked by longhairs who have done tests. Though it does not make scientific sense, perhaps for some it has made economic sense, and they have therefore spread the tale. Don't buy that line, and remember, the fastest way to get through the awkward phase is to not trim your hair.


Accepting That You Have Long Hair
One small battle you may have to fight within yourself is accepting long hair for the way it is. It is not glued to your head with a 100% consistent look, like short hair is, and if you've had short hair, you may be used to that.

Unlike short hair, long hair has varying character, it has life! It falls behind your shoulders at one moment, on them at another, and perhaps in front of them a little later. It splits over them in different ways, it falls in your face, it blows around a bit in the breeze. And it moves when you do.

Don't think you have to comb your long hair or restrain it every time it moves. Don't think you have to do so every time you see your reflection and your hair is a bit different than the last time you looked. Expect it to be like long hair is. Expect it to have life! Restraining our hair is something all longhairs sometimes want to do. But don't go overboard with what we talk about next here.


Ways to Restrain Long Hair
You'll discover most things to restrain hair on the market, such as bobby pins, barrettes and hair combs look a bit feminine, which leaves one to "frequent combing" until your hair gets long enough to wear one of these two things which do look masculine - a bandanna or a pony tie. I'll talk about bandannas first, since they are useable at a shorter hair length. (I will omit discussing caps or hats, since they go beyond "restraining" your hair to "hiding" it, but of course they are useful as well during this phase.)

Bandannas
Bandannas come across very masculine, and if you like the look of one, it will be the first thing that works in restraining your hair. They will work soonest if you part your hair in the middle, combing it to the sides. This is because the hair above the middle of your forehead has less distance to go to reach the bandanna over your ears than if it has to reach it at the back of your head.

Bandannas are in reality the same thing as handkerchiefs, of course, and only change their name depending upon where they are used. When you first shop for one, you will find that almost all stores stock only white ones, and a white bandanna will make people wonder if you are lost and looking for the nearest emergency room. So you will want your bandannas to be in colors.

One of the best sources, where they have many colors of bandannas, is in clothing stores in gay neighborhoods. Gay people use various handkerchief colors to signal different interests, so these stores will have bandannas in just about any color you want. Motorcycle shops and western wear stores also stock bandannas in colors, but the selection may be more limited.

Be sure to get a bandanna that is 100% cotton. Most are, but a few for sale are a cotton and polyester blend. Avoid them. They will itch more than cotton, they will not stay put on your head as well, they will not absorb moisture as well, and they will be stiffer. Their stiffness means they won't fold as well, and if you want a narrow band, you will need to make lots of folds.

Some cotton bandannas are made with a heavier cloth than usual. These also do not fold well and you might want to avoid them.

Bandannas, to fit around your head, will need to be the right size, but almost all you find in stores will be that size. The correct size is somewhere between 21 and 22 inches (53-56 cm) on a side. Anything bigger will work, of course, with the cloth beyond the knot hanging down in the back like a pony tail does.

Some longhairs are perplexed when they first try to tie a bandanna. The secret is that you have to tie diagonal corners together. Adjacent corners are too close together and will not reach around your head! So the first step is to fold the bandanna in a triangle.

Making your first fold like this instead of a perfect triangle will also work, and starting like this may allow you to fold the bandanna so more interesting patterns appear across your forehead. Starting like this may make tying the corners a little easier because they will not consist of a double layer of cloth. If you are going for a cap instead of a band on your head, starting like this may also keep the bandanna from wrinkling as much on your forehead. (Lay the short side underneath and the long side on top, if doing this. Having the longer side on top makes tucking the whole bandanna under the knot in back easier.)

A distance of about three inches (seven centimeters) between the two nearby corners works well for this fold.

After getting the triangle, if you want a band around your head and if you are in a hurry you can just grab the bandanna by its opposite ends and twirl it into a tubular roll, but it will not be extremely tidy-looking that way, and a corner may stick out, when you put it on your head. It is better to lay the bandanna on a table and fold it carefully. The first thing you will want to do is fold the two near-to-each-other corners almost completely across the triangle. That way they'll end up in the inside of the future roll. Then if you want, you can pay attention and continue to fold the bandanna so the patterns in it will look a certain way when you make your final fold. You should aim for a finished strip about an inch (2.5 cm) wide.

Next you want to tie the bandanna in the back with a square knot, of course, but if you have curly hair, you will discover this is impossible to do without catching a few hairs in the knot each time, and of course when you remove the bandanna those strands of hair will break. So put the bandanna on in reverse - tie it in the front. Then you can lift it off and reinstall it with the knot in the back. The place the bandanna should rest is in the middle of the forehead, just over the ears, and just below the knot on the back of the head.

It is not necessary to retie a bandanna every time you use it. You can just lift it off like a large band and use it again another day. You will need to do this a few times the same day anyway (if you have it on all day) because you have to take it off once in a while to neaten hair on top of your head that has become frizzy. Hair on top of your head will work its way out if you're wearing a bandanna, just like it will with a pony tail.

During the time that your bandanna is tied in a band it may stretch, and this may necessitate retying, but this will probably happen only once per washing. This is most likely to happen if the bandanna gets damp or wet.

If you decide you don't want your bandanna on your head, the best thing to do with the band is to fold it and put it in a shirt pocket or front pants pocket. If you put it in a rear pocket and sit on it, it will get wrinkled. Another thing you can do with the bandanna is store it is around your neck. Just push it down, flip your hair through and over it, and then turn it 180 degrees around so the knot is in the front. With this maneuver you've just turned it into neckwear.

If you don't wash a bandanna, after a few days of wearing it, your forehead will break out underneath it. Bandannas are made with a much thinner cloth than are shirts or jeans, making them dry easily overnight, so washing them is convenient. Do it.

A good web page with photographs, illustrating how to tie a bandanna, can be seen here.

Hair Ties
Once your hair reaches a length where hair strands from all over reach the back of the head, a pony tail becomes an option. Though most longhairs say their favorite style for hair is "down" or "loose", if one looks around he will discover most longhairs have their hair in pony tails. Hair in a pony tail stays neater longer and is less susceptible to messing by wind, so it needs less frequent combing. So those who feel the pony tail look suits them, often have their hair in a tail.

Of course, to have a pony tail, one must use a hair tie of some type. The thing to not do is use a rubber band! It will break several strands of hair and damage who knows how many more, every time you remove it. So go to the drugstore and buy a package of pony ties.

You will find different kinds there. Pony ties that don't contain exposed metal, that are softer, or that are thicker will damage your hair less. So go for those.

Most ties on the shelves will be in pastel feminine colors, but keep looking. Ties in solid "pure" colors look more masculine, as do black ones, and they are not that hard to find.

Some masculine jewelry is available for hair tying, but you'll really have to look to find it, and you may have to purchase it from afar, such as from someone on the Internet. One such supplier is The Mystic Caravan, at mystic-caravan.com, which features sleeves to hold your pony tail like these:



A wide selection of similar jewelry is also available at CopperBracelets.com. In addition to cuffs similar to those above, they also sell wide hair clips, and medallions like these:



Another source for masculine hair jewelry has been the Highlander Store, which sold the hair ties used by longhair Duncan MacLeod in the Highlander TV show. The show went off the air for a while, and the store at that time was closing out merchandise. The Highlander Store could be reached at 1-800-622-0922 and offered hair ties such as the ones below. We do not know how long they will be available or if they now even are, but these ties are awesome enough I feel you'd want to see them, so I will leave them here:



Street fairs and tourist bazaars are places one sometimes finds an artisan offering masculine hair restraints, so keep an eye open in those places.

Braids
Braids can be done instead of pony tails, though they are tough to do yourself if you have curly hair. Otherwise, braiding is not that difficult, but it is something that one can only learn by practicing.

Braids are particularly suited for extremely long straight hair. This is so much so, that a majority of all men we see with hair to their waist or below have it braided.

One biker I know swears by braids, saying they are the only thing that works in high wind. His beard is so long he braids it, too, to keep the hair from it from blowing into his eyes! It does look strange, but as he said, it does the job.

Accessories That Look Feminine
"What! Is this guy nuts!" you must be asking. Why is he about to mention stuff for me that looks feminine?

The reason I am bringing this up is that some men avoid accessories they only think of as feminine because they only have seen them on women, but they are not feminine really. What matters is "will that thing look feminine on me?" If you are burly, damned little will. Lots of useful hair accessories such as dark brown plastic combs are readily used by women but shunned by longhairs because they just aren't seen often on men. But if the thing really isn't frilly or in a pastel color, at least try it on! See if it looks feminine on you.

A similar comment can be made about hair styles that was just made about hair accessories. Some men feel any style other than "loose" or "a pony tail tied low" is feminine. Indeed, most men opt for one or the other of those styles. Before shunning any other styles if you yearn to wear one, though, look to see whether that style looks feminine on you.

Turn over a two dollar bill and look at the back. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence is wearing a bow on his pony tail, and it doesn't look feminine on him at all!

Problematical Clothing
Some styles of clothing that worked fine when you had short hair may be a bit of a nuisance with long hair. If you wear a coat or sweatshirt with a hood, the hood will fight with your mane unless you put your mane under that coat or shirt. Shirts with collars will mess with your hair more than those without. Zippers, snaps, and velcro can catch and pull long hair. Shirts you must pull over your head will go on okay, but they will mess up your hair when you take them off, and they may pull some, too.

Some styles may not be attractive with long hair. In particular, a strong repetitive pattern lying underneath your hair, such as a plaid shirt with highly contrasting medium or large sized squares, may run interference with the pattern in your hair. This can obscure any attractive pattern you want people to see in your hair, and it can cause your hair to look messier than it is, because the pattern in such a shirt is so precise in comparison.

What About Haircuts?
Haircuts? While growing your hair out? You're best off to forget them and just let your hair grow all over. You will feel a great temptation to trim it in places during the awkward phase to "neaten it up", but all you will be doing is extending the awkward phase because the hair you've been cutting will take even longer to reach a length where you can restrain it. In general, as a longhair, remember you should abandon associating "neatening up" your hair with "trimming". With long hair other methods, the ones we've mentioned above, are used for neatening.

In particular, resist the temptation to cut the hair short in front while letting it grow long elsewhere. In front is where the hair is most visible, so later when you decide to let that part of your hair grow out, the awkward phase will be extended by many months, and right up front where people see it.

Once your hair has grown out, you may want to get it trimmed along the bottom, while it hangs loose (not in a pony tail!) way down behind the back, to even up the ends. This should not be done until your hair is as long as you want, as this maneuver will prolong the amount of time it take to reach the desired length. This "trimming the ends for neatness" tack is one just the guys with straight or mostly straight hair ever need worry about. Though curly hair tapers off to a thinness at a certain length as surely as straight hair does, the ends of such hair are all mixed in with the other hair and they are not visible, so trimming fulfills no real purpose other than just to make your hair look shorter. If your hair gets longer than you want, you may want to trim it infrequently to keep it the length you want.

You may be tempted to trim around your long hair in some fashion. Some men cut the neck hair to either side of their pony tail. Others cut the hair on top short, hoping to just have long hair in the back.

The problem with such styles is that in trimming around the long hair, barbers will always miss a little here and there. To make their haircut of the moment look better, they will even things up by taking strands of your long hair! Each barber in turn will do this, clueless that you took two or three years to grow those hairs, and your long hair area will shrink and shrink with each haircut until you have little long hair left.

Of course you will need to trim your beard, unless you completely shave or are growing it out. And you may wish to trim your sideburns in front of your ears. What often looks best is to trim any sideburn hair that is too low to push back over the top of your ears, and to trim it to the same length as your beard. This is trimming you can probably do yourself.

The hair that grows in your beard is different from the hair on top of your head. Similarly, hair on the scruff of your neck is a third kind of hair. It will not necessarily be the same as the other hair on your head, and it normally has a much shorter terminal length. If this hair does not go well with the rest of your hair (for some men it does, for others the mismatch is striking), you will probably want to shave or trim it off, unless it is seldom seen. Men who leave their hair down all the time, for example, don't have to worry about this because no one ever sees that hair. If you most often go for a ponytail and this hair clashes with the rest of your hair, you will probably want to remove it. It will never change how it looks, and it is not going to grow long, anyway.

Though most longhairs can forget about visits to the barbershop, some, particularly those with straight hair, find visits to a beauty salon to be of benefit. In that setting, one can have the hair made more wavy or have it trimmed. Longhairs with curly or wavy hair really don't need either of those services, though they may find a salon helpful with the selection of hair care products.

Beyond the Awkward Phase
As your hair progresses beyond the shoulders, it will begin to appear much neater! The added weight of the hair will hold it in place around the head, and its added bulkiness will tend to hold it together. Options to restrain the hair, such as ponytails, can also now be employed. When you reach this stage, you will be glad you did not attempt to "neaten" your awkward-phase hair with trimming! Consistent length that extends completely off the head is what makes a longhair look neat.

Deciding on a Final Length
Eventually, you will have a new decision to make: How long do you want your long hair to be! You can go for terminal - go for the max - but your hair will probably look a bit ratty on the ends. If you have more length than matters to you at that point, you may want to trim off a bit to have nicer looking ends. If your hair reaches terminal before you have all the hair you want, or so close to the awkward stage length that you sure don't want to take off any for neatness' sake, then you'll feel your hair looks best the way it is, despite its terminal ends.

The conformist in you may drive you to consider what lengths are popular with other longhaired men. Most longhairs settle on a length between shoulder length and mid-back, with shoulderblade length the most popular. This is a length that looks plenty "longhaired" but avoids the escalating hair care hassles that come with hair that is longer. As with other minorities, longhairs are underrepresented on television, but some appear there, and one can get a sense of where fashion is by looking at persons shown. Most longhairs on TV have their hair at shoulderblade length. Portrayals of men with hair below mid-back are quite rare.

If your hair gets really long, you will probably have it in a braid or a tail most of the time, just to control it. If you really like having your hair loose a lot, you may want to stop at a shorter length.

Some men with hair longer than mid-back report that they began to get confused for being female when their hair passed that point. This is probably just because fewer men go for longer lengths. This is something to keep in mind if it might bother you.


Fun and Not So Fun Things
Part of the pleasure of having your hair grow out is having new experiences with it. The first time you can see your own hair, the first time you can feel it move independent of your body, the first time you feel it brush against your shoulders, the first time you can put it in your mouth, etc., are all milestones to celebrate!

And some things may not be for celebration but will bring laughter, such as the first windy day at an outdoor cafe that I found hair in my food while chewing, and upon trying to remove it, I realized it was attached! Guess I couldn't blame the waiter for that one!

I chuckle about the first time my hair got into a picture I was taking, too.

Though accidents with long hair are rare, one suddenly becomes far more aware of such hazards as ignition sources - I'm not so apt to lean over to do a task near a gas stove burner or the fireplace as I once was, for example. Watch out for candles, and smokers lighting cigarettes - one longhair I've met had his hair accidentally set afire once by a smoker in a movie line. Watch out for revolving doors and other doors if your hair is really long. And one must be aware of rotating machinery in some places and should consider wrapping up one's hair when there to eliminate the hazard.

Also guard your mane like you would your wallet in public places, particularly when seated in front of strange people for a period of time. Municipal buses and movie theaters are such places. Though the dipping of pony tails in inkwells vanished with inkwells, the temptation to play with someone else's hair did not. There are no nerves in your mane, of course, to warn you that some idiot has decided to chop on it or otherwise mess with it. Put it under your shirt or coat, or throw it over your shoulder so it's in front and you can keep an eye on it.

Next we look at how people, both longhairs and others, feel about long hair! It's in Part 4.

Part 4 - How People Feel About Long Hair

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Reactions from Others
They may not be what you think. Most people will, of course, not have any real reaction to you at all, any different than they would have before. But some stereotypes, mostly myths, need to be visited.

Will people think I'm a girl? Well, that depends on how masculine the rest of you looks. If you are big boned with a very masculine face and you are six feet seven inches (two meters) tall, no one will think that. They won't ask you either! If you are slight and effeminate in appearance, and you were counting on a masculine style of haircut before, to make you look masculine, then you might confuse some people. Hair not heavily styled is the long hair style that looks the most masculine, but unlike many male short haircuts, such long hair styles do not really carry a sex message at all. So your long hair will not provide the clues your short hair once did, and you will find yourself needing to rely on other things that people see.

The one way to dispel all misconceptions promptly is to grow facial hair. Head hair is not a sexual marker, but facial hair is, and in the direction you want to be read. No one will mistake you at all once you grow it, from the moment it is seen.

I have one friend who has long hair and is very short. He says he is occasionally hit upon from behind by straight men in dark bars. His solution is to turn around, revealing his beard and saying in his very deep voice, "I don't really think I'm your type!" He says that with a smile, and he says immediately afterward he usually shares a good laugh over the event with the unfortunate fellow who made the misreading.

Will people think I am gay? Only the ignorant ones. At the moment, long hair is quite rare in the gay community, and most longhairs that one sees are straight. In reality, being read as gay is seldom a problem. This is mostly a myth thrown in with the other scary "what ifs" that float through the head of a potential longhair.

Though the gay community nowadays is pretty international in scope, some societies are burdened with these misconceptions more than others. Those so burdened tend to be the more tropical cultures, where a hot climate makes long hair less popular with the populace at large and thus an easier target for stereotyping. Some longhairs in Hispanic and African cultures have experienced much more difficulty in this area than their brethren in cooler climes, where the practicality of long hair is more appreciated by men in the community at large.

Some ultra-conservative Moslem sects are under the misconception that longhairs are transgenders, and assaults and mutilations of longhairs have occurred in places they control as a result. Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia should be avoided by longhairs, as attacks have been well-documented in the media in those two places. In 2004, there have been isolated attacks in Iraq and the nation of Turkmenistan has outlawed longhairs altogether.

Will gay men hit on me? This is an oft cited fear and one completely unfounded. My answer from personal experience would be, "Probably less often than before." The fear is probably rooted in the misconception that gay men are looking for longhairs because they want men who look like women. In reality, most longhairs do not look like women, most gay men do not want men who look like women anyway, and long hair is out of fashion at the moment in most gay circles, anyway. So forget this one. But really, the solution if anyone should come on to you is simple, and the same as the one used to dissuade straight men who might think you are a girl. Just say, "Sorry, you're not my type." Gay men will almost invariably accept that.

Be aware that as a longhair you may find more women hitting on you! Some women really like men with long hair.

What other things will people think? Probably that you're a rock musician, that you like to do drugs, or that you ride a Harley. These three stereotypes have been thrown at us so long that they have become jokes among longhairs. But the clueless keep coming up with them over and over. Fortunately, one quickly gets used to it, and it soon becomes something to laugh about. If you like one of those stereotypes and it actually fits you, you can choose to play the part (with clothing, mannerisms, etc.). This consistency in your appearance can make things easier in one way - people will be more comfortable around you when they can rapidly pigeonhole you into one of their stereotypes.

Some security guards in places such as building lobbies will challenge longhairs. But since one never goes into any such place without business there in the first place, these types immediately become helpful once you tell them why you're there. They usually approach you with a "can I help you" line, so I take advantage of the situation, getting precise directions to where I am going, while all the shorthaired folk are left to fend for themselves!

Recognizing Slurs
As a member of a minority, you will occasionally be subjected to slurs. Until longhairs met one another on the Internet and began to discuss this, we found we were conditioned by those who would oppress us to not recognize their slurs for what they actually were.

The most common slur is "Get a haircut!" This is "the n-word" for us - it is what gets yelled at us from pickup trucks. You should recognize this expression carries the offensive message that you are not wanted where you are. Once you realize this is a slur and not a grooming tip, you can more properly deal with the offensive nature that the utterance entails. The appropriate response to a slur is indignation, which can be shown by returning a cold stare, dressing down the offender, or totally ignoring him thereafter.

Other slurs occasionally heard are that you look female or homosexual. If they say, "You look like a girl," don't believe for a minute they really believe that. People don't say that to real girls. It's a slur, dude.

One other slur you might get thrown your way is a comment that a particular mannerism looks feminine. Such as pushing your hair out of your face. This is hogwash. All longhairs do these things because they relate to having long hair.

From time to time people will combine the fact that you have long hair into some milder statement of offense. They will state that your hair makes you look too old, too young, etc. The truth is, you will look that way with or without the hair. Some balding longhairs have been told they look like "old hippies", for example, but I've been told the same thing and I have all my hair. Comments such as these are only mildly offensive and warrant a less forceful response than do full blown slurs. Deflecting the comment from your hair to addressing the underlying accusation works best, e.g., "Hey, I'll look old no matter what I do!"

Dealing with Childhood Abuse
It is not uncommon for longhaired men to have been physically abused as children about their hair. Because longhaired males are in a minority, support structures are weak and often lacking altogether, and boys must often suffer the abuse alone. One man tells of being wrestled to the ground when a child by his father and another adult and forcefully shorn, leaving his hair badly butchered and bruises all over his face and head. When he went to school the following day and tried to hide the injuries with a ball cap, his teachers hassled him about wearing the cap in school rather than supporting him for having been beaten. And no other students consoled or supported him either. Sadly, stories such as these are not rare.

As adults, some of us can forgive such abusers and some of us cannot. For some of us the pain runs so deep that the only sane response is to write such people out of our lives. This is a decision each victim must make for himself.

Many perpetrators are not aware how serious their acts are, and that such acts break up families. Adult longhairs do frequently report that such perpetrators are eventually cut out of their lives. If it helps, one may remind such an abuser of such things such as that they may never get to see their grandchildren, and that they may grow old alone. It's tough to say such things to a parent, but you may feel the truth should be said.

Be aware that perpetrators may seek to justify their act with an assertion "that it is legal". In some jurisdictions it may be. That, however, does not make it right. Slavery, beating your wife, and shooting Indians for sport were at one time legal, but they were never right.

If you are a young longhair and find yourself in an an abusive situation, you should seek out support. Support on the Internet is helpful, but nothing beats support from adults in your community. If your abuse is coming from fellow students, seek support from faculty or administrators, or from your parents or other family adults. If your abuse is coming from adults at school, seek out support from other adults at school, from your parents, or parents of friends. If your abuse is coming from family members, seek support from other family members such as aunts or uncles, or seek support from parents of friends or adults at school. Then add to your support team by rounding up whatever support you can muster from people your age. The more people who will speak for you, the less you are apt to be bothered.

If you should be assaulted, get witnesses and take photographs. Abusers often follow up an attack with insisting that you go to a haircutter to "clean up" the damage - the aftermath of such an assault if you resist is never pretty. Recognize such demands for what they are - they are attempts to conceal evidence. You will get more support if people actually see what was done to you, so you may wish to document the evidence with photographs and with visits to criminal prosecutors or others who would make good witnesses first.

If you receive threats, take them seriously. Often such threats are acted upon that very day or the next, so you may wish to get out. It will be helpful to have already arranged a safe haven in the home of a relative or friend, if you see an act of this nature coming. From such a safe haven you can then make a decision as to what you want to do. Agencies who counsel abused youth tell us, "Only the youth can make that decision, and it must be his to make." You'll be making a "between a rock and a hard place" decision, perhaps one of the more important in your life. Only you know how you feel about your hair and all the other issues which inevitably surround such a decision. From the safety of a refuge you can consider choices and talk to others, and best make it.

An Important General Comment About Abuse
Demands made upon a man to cut hair are seldom about appearance and almost always about power. To fight your best battle you need to dig down to the real issues, which center around power, and deal with those.

For further information and resources for dealing with discrimination and abuse, see:

Resources for Longhairs
The Significance of Male Hair by Raj Singh

Abuse in the Media
As do all minorities, longhairs complain that they are underrepresented in the media, cast in limited roles, or cast in roles as undesirable characters. This is harmful because it reinforces untrue stereotypes about us, and encourages those who would disrespect us with slurs or other abuse.

Far worse is when slurs are actually aired, or abuse is acted out by taking hair off men not really willing. To longhaired men, this is as offensive as dragging a black man behind a truck. Someone can be found by television producers to do almost anything, but when people in real life are being abused with an act, its portrayal is offensive. For each cheerful "makeover" on television in the afternoon, we cry, because we know that night a hundred boys will be beaten.

Some of us choose to speak out against abuse in the media and some do not, but recognizing abuse for what it is, is the first step, for those of us who do.

Longhairs as a Social Group
Some people may ask, "Why are longhaired men subjected to discriminatory treatment such as minorities get, while longhaired women are not?" The reason is that longhaired men are perceived by many as a separate social group. If a woman gets shorter hair in a makeover or simply cuts her hair, no one sees it as an event with any significance beyond one of her own preference. If a man does the same thing, he is seen as having moved from one social group to another. Everyone will be talking about it. The reason is such an act has social significance.

If a TV program made black people look more white and gloated over how much better they looked afterward, black people would be outraged. Such a program would portray black people as less worthy, and would thus encourage discrimination and violence against them. A makeover that trims a longhair's hair but leaves him a longhair is not offensive to longhaired men. It is the crossing of a line between social groups that causes the offense.

One piece of evidence that longhairs are seen as a separate social group is the mere existence of the word "longhair". A special word to define us occurs in English and in several other languages. These words are loaded with far more meaning than just hair length. No such single word appears for longhaired women.

Although many longhaired men do not identify with "being longhaired" at a social-group level, it becomes clear to anyone who visits longhair chat boards that longhairs have some distinctive social and personality traits that set them apart. The mere willingness to stand up for oneself for several years straight, never wavering once, sets longhaired men apart as being men who are strong individualists and who strongly respect that trait in others. Foisting overly conformist attitudes on others is just not an accepted behavior among longhaired men.

Some longhaired men experience what we consider to be a very positive change in their outlook on life as their hair first grows out. The pride in standing up for yourself and exposure to the ways you are treated differently all contribute to personality changes. It has been said that a man gains as much growth underneath his scalp as he does above it. Growing one's hair takes so long that personality shifts are possible during this time, and these shifts often take a man in the same direction as that where other longhaired men will be found.

Longhaired men on chat boards will often get on certain topics over and over, such as rock bands, wrestlers, and longhaired movie stars. That these topics are not considered "off topic" is evidence that there is such a thing as a longhair culture, and these topics are a part of it. Indeed, these topics have some correlation to the stereotypes we joked about further up this page. As is the case with other minorities, we want to be seen as individuals though, not just as being "one of those people". This is especially so for members of a social group where individuality is a most-valued trait of its culture.

Second Thoughts
If your own thoughts should turn to second thoughts from time to time about being a longhair, remember that a haircut will seem darned near permanent after it is done. You should formulate for yourself a reasonable procedure for irreversible decisions so you won't make ones you later regret.

I adhere to what I call "the two week rule". Any time I get a notion to cut hair, I note the date. If I feel the same way for two weeks straight without wavering once, then I proceed. Otherwise, I deem myself not ready, and I am thankful I had a procedure to prevent me from taking an action I would have regretted.

If I am having a particularly bad hair day, I cheer myself up with this reminder: For the shorthaired, every day is a bad hair day!

Discrimination
As a longhair, as with anyone in a minority, you will face some discrimination. People are usually delighted to take your money, so the main place you'll find discrimination is not when you are buying stuff. It will be in the workplace.

For now, in most places such discrimination is legal. Employers can discriminate against almost anything except a short list of characteristics, and long hair is not on that list. So you must decide how important your long hair is to you, and then accept the extra effort it might take to find a position where you are accepted.

Finding a job if you have long hair is a lot like finding an apartment if you have a dog. If you really like your dog, or your long hair, you will just keep looking until you are successful. Think about it - all the people you see enjoying their dogs in the city's parks found apartments. And all the longhairs you see in the city's cafes found ways to support themselves. Most of them are working somewhere. If they succeeded, so can you!

Don't expect to find that magical place where most of the workers are longhairs. It is not likely to happen, because longhairs make up only about two to three percent of the adult male population. Most longhairs work where they are either the only one, or only one of a few. It's far easier to find a place where you will be accepted as a minority, than it is to track down a place where you will be in the majority. Longhairs are just too scarce.

If a potential employer wants to discuss your hair, offer to negotiate style, but never length. A style can be dissembled at five o'clock if you don't care for it. Length changes take so long to repair that the change will seem permanent.

You should never cut hair with the idea that you will "get the job and then grow it back". Longhairs report that it is far more difficult to grow long hair on a job than it is to keep it if you already had it. Employers will think, "He was shorthaired when I hired him, so he certainly can live with being shorthaired now!"

You should also not start a precedent of acquiescing to length-cutting requests. Once you've allowed them one such request, you have no assurance they will not keep coming back for more. Your yielding the first time will greatly weaken your position should repeat requests occur.

Most people with short hair equate "neatness" with trimming, because that is how one makes short hair look neater. You may need to point out that one achieves neatness with long hair in other ways, such as by combing it frequently or by tying it back. Some longhairs report that their employers are aware of this difference, telling all the shorthaired men to get haircuts when, for example, a dignitary is coming, but sparing the longhairs from the directive.

Most shorthaired people have no concept as to how much time and effort goes into growing a head of long hair. A man who runs to the barbershop every two weeks will from his own perspective regard hair as being almost as changeable as clothing. From a longhair's perspective, a hair cutting is not at all akin to a clothing change. Because a hair cutting will affect one's appearance for years to come, it is far more akin to a mutilation. Thus many shorthaired people have little grasp of just how much they are asking, when they suggest you alter the length of your hair. It may help to explain just how long it took to grow hair the length of yours.

As with most discrimination, those who hassle longhairs often do it because they don't like the person in question. If they like you and your work, chances are slim that they will push too hard about your hair. Good employees are tough to find and costly to replace. So think long and hard whether any hassling about your hair might be just because they don't like you and are trying to find a way to get rid of you anyway. If this is the case you surely do not want to cut your hair, because if you do, they will then just find another reason to dislike you, and soon you will be both without your job, and without your hair! Forcing someone to mutilate himself is a serious assault - and it constitutes a serious blow to his self-esteem. You don't really want to be under that burden in addition to the others which will rest upon you at such a time.

Consider this: It's bad enough when others write their ideas on the wall of your house, but nothing constitutes a greater affront than having others write their ideas on you. It becomes graffiti of the gravest sort.

One important thing to consider at a time discrimination occurs is the answer to the question, "Why am I a longhair?" The answer may help you decide whether you will cut your hair or not.

Why Be a Longhair?
There are two reasons men become longhairs. You either do it for others, or you do it for yourself. Of course, your reasons could be a hybrid. But consider these two scenarios, and then decide which one is more "you":

You are longhaired because of fashion. You want people to think you are in certain groups, or you want to be accepted in certain circles. If long hair were to be out with such people next year, you would probably cut yours. Or if you decided to run with a different group that did not have long hair, you would opt for a haircut. And if a new flame didn't like long hair, you would seriously consider cutting yours. You have long hair because you like the reactions it garners from other people.
You are longhaired because it is part of your identity. You have likely yearned to be longhaired since childhood, because identity arises there. Fights with your parents over haircuts were possibly a frequent occurrence when growing up. You are not longhaired because you do drugs, ride a motorcycle, or play in a rock band, and you may not like it when people draw social conclusions about you because of your hair. You don't have long hair to belong to any group. You have it because it is part of your identity - who you feel you yourself are. Your longhair mindset arises from within, not from others.
Humans are born with a drive to meet their identity needs first, and once that is done, to try to fit in with others. Thus men longhaired for the second set of reasons will put a higher priority on being longhaired than men in the first group. Just thinking of how people feel about other identity issues will illustrate this.

One's race, sex, sexual orientation, and nationality are characteristics usually held at the "identity" level. Think of how you would feel if your company decided to have a "high heels and dress" policy, and all employees, males included, would be required to dress that way. Would you feel comfortable because "everybody else was dressed that way"? Most males would shout "No!" and in that scenario we see identity raring its head. Identity cares not at all that "everybody else is doing it". And one is driven to meet his identity needs first. What others might think comes in second.

It should be added that identity concepts are generally locked in in early childhood, and as adults we are seldom able to change these very basic feelings as to who we really are.

Of course, it is because of identity drives that we have gay people, trans people, and people hanging onto minority nationality identities for generations. It would be far easier for all of these people to just "go with the flow". But identity is a strong drive. If you are in the second group of longhairs I described, you will feel strongly about not cutting your hair. If you are in the first group, since you are longhaired to please others anyway, you may decide in weighing the desires of different groups, that it is time for a haircut.

A bit more needs to be said about these two groups, those in the first group who are longhairs for social reasons, and those in the second group, for whom long hair is part of their identity.

Social Longhairs
Those in the first group, the social longhairs, account for fluctuations in the number of longhairs in various settings and eras. If long hair is "in", social longhairs will proliferate. If long hair is "out" with a particular group or in a particular place, the number of social longhairs there will decline.

This is not so likely to be the case with the second group, for whom the social environment means little, when it comes to something as important to them as long hair.

Born Longhairs
If being a longhair is part of your identity, you will probably feel like you were born that way. Identity arises in childhood, and it often goes back to our earliest memories. From our own perspectives, those of us with a longhair identity feel like we were born that way. And perhaps we were.

It could very well be that this kind of thing is indeed inherited. Among the human race we don't have people wanting to look like telephone poles, or dogs for that matter. We all identify as humans, and long hair is part of the human form. If the most primitive of animals can identify others of their species with ease, can we seriously argue that humans are incapable of this, and free of the identity mechanisms that come down with a heavy genetic component to every other species?

So long hair on the head, a trait uniquely human on this planet, may be imbedded in the human psyche as one element to be seized upon by a human child in forming his identity. If you were such a child, you will always be a longhair inside. Adults can seldom change items of identity. You will never be happy without long hair. To find that happiness, you will probably want keep your hair long and accept that you are in a minority - and accept the reality that society is not fair towards minorities but that you are doing the best you can do to be happy and live your life.

If long hair is part of your identity, it may be as much a part of your mental picture of yourself as is your sex - generally another component of one's identity. If that is the case, you might find the idea of cutting your hair to be about as unpleasant as the thought of an unwanted sex change operation. Just because the surgical solution to achieve one such unwanted change is far simpler than the other does not for you make the coercion of it any less ugly, or the performance of it any less cruel.

If you are a man whose identity includes having long hair, the realization of that, of its importance to you, and of your determination to stand up for what you are, can bring you great internal peace. With that peace and determination, you can go much further than you ever could as a timid shorthaired man who was unhappy and clueless as to knowing who he was. This realization is a time for celebration, and a time for one to take pride in being what he is - a born longhair!

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No man has expressed the essence of the longhair identity better, and yet in so few words, as has John Two-Hawks. You may wish to read his two short paragraphs here.

If you want to communicate with other longhairs about the longhair experience, the best place to do that is the Men's Long Hair Hyperboard!

Long hair is for young guys, teens and early to mid-twenties. After that it starts to look immature, and a symptom of a mid-life crisis.

I had an absolute mane back in the day.

Hell, I can't read all that, but I will say that I've always been a sucker for the guy with the long hair

Will gay men hit on me? This is an oft cited fear and one completely unfounded. My answer from personal experience would be, "Probably less often than before." The fear is probably rooted in the misconception that gay men are looking for longhairs because they want men who look like women. In reality, most longhairs do not look like women, most gay men do not want men who look like women anyway, and long hair is out of fashion at the moment in most gay circles, anyway. So forget this one. But really, the solution if anyone should come on to you is simple, and the same as the one used to dissuade straight men who might think you are a girl. Just say, "Sorry, you're not my type." Gay men will almost invariably accept that.

Be aware that as a longhair you may find more women hitting on you! Some women really like men with long hair.

What other things will people think? Probably that you're a rock musician, that you like to do drugs, or that you ride a Harley. These three stereotypes have been thrown at us so long that they have become jokes among longhairs. But the clueless keep coming up with them over and over. Fortunately, one quickly gets used to it, and it soon becomes something to laugh about. If you like one of those stereotypes and it actually fits you, you can choose to play the part (with clothing, mannerisms, etc.). This consistency in your appearance can make things easier in one way - people will be more comfortable around you when they can rapidly pigeonhole you into one of their stereotypes.

As a member of a minority, you will occasionally be subjected to slurs. Until longhairs met one another on the Internet and began to discuss this, we found we were conditioned by those who would oppress us to not recognize their slurs for what they actually were.

The most common slur is "Get a haircut!" This is "the n-word" for us - it is what gets yelled at us from pickup trucks. You should recognize this expression carries the offensive message that you are not wanted where you are. Once you realize this is a slur and not a grooming tip, you can more properly deal with the offensive nature that the utterance entails. The appropriate response to a slur is indignation, which can be shown by returning a cold stare, dressing down the offender, or totally ignoring him thereafter.

Other slurs occasionally heard are that you look female or homosexual. If they say, "You look like a girl," don't believe for a minute they really believe that. People don't say that to real girls. It's a slur, dude.

One other slur you might get thrown your way is a comment that a particular mannerism looks feminine. Such as pushing your hair out of your face. This is hogwash. All longhairs do these things because they relate to having long hair.

From time to time people will combine the fact that you have long hair into some milder statement of offense. They will state that your hair makes you look too old, too young, etc. The truth is, you will look that way with or without the hair. Some balding longhairs have been told they look like "old hippies", for example, but I've been told the same thing and I have all my hair. Comments such as these are only mildly offensive and warrant a less forceful response than do full blown slurs. Deflecting the comment from your hair to addressing the underlying accusation works best, e.g., "Hey, I'll look old no matter what I do!"

It is not uncommon for longhaired men to have been physically abused as children about their hair. Because longhaired males are in a minority, support structures are weak and often lacking altogether, and boys must often suffer the abuse alone. One man tells of being wrestled to the ground when a child by his father and another adult and forcefully shorn, leaving his hair badly butchered and bruises all over his face and head. When he went to school the following day and tried to hide the injuries with a ball cap, his teachers hassled him about wearing the cap in school rather than supporting him for having been beaten. And no other students consoled or supported him either. Sadly, stories such as these are not rare.

As adults, some of us can forgive such abusers and some of us cannot. For some of us the pain runs so deep that the only sane response is to write such people out of our lives. This is a decision each victim must make for himself.

Many perpetrators are not aware how serious their acts are, and that such acts break up families. Adult longhairs do frequently report that such perpetrators are eventually cut out of their lives. If it helps, one may remind such an abuser of such things such as that they may never get to see their grandchildren, and that they may grow old alone. It's tough to say such things to a parent, but you may feel the truth should be said.

Be aware that perpetrators may seek to justify their act with an assertion "that it is legal". In some jurisdictions it may be. That, however, does not make it right. Slavery, beating your wife, and shooting Indians for sport were at one time legal, but they were never right.

If you are a young longhair and find yourself in an an abusive situation, you should seek out support. Support on the Internet is helpful, but nothing beats support from adults in your community. If your abuse is coming from fellow students, seek support from faculty or administrators, or from your parents or other family adults. If your abuse is coming from adults at school, seek out support from other adults at school, from your parents, or parents of friends. If your abuse is coming from family members, seek support from other family members such as aunts or uncles, or seek support from parents of friends or adults at school. Then add to your support team by rounding up whatever support you can muster from people your age. The more people who will speak for you, the less you are apt to be bothered.

Some people may ask, "Why are longhaired men subjected to discriminatory treatment such as minorities get, while longhaired women are not?" The reason is that longhaired men are perceived by many as a separate social group. If a woman gets shorter hair in a makeover or simply cuts her hair, no one sees it as an event with any significance beyond one of her own preference. If a man does the same thing, he is seen as having moved from one social group to another. Everyone will be talking about it. The reason is such an act has social significance.

As a longhair, as with anyone in a minority, you will face some discrimination. People are usually delighted to take your money, so the main place you'll find discrimination is not when you are buying stuff. It will be in the workplace.

For now, in most places such discrimination is legal. Employers can discriminate against almost anything except a short list of characteristics, and long hair is not on that list. So you must decide how important your long hair is to you, and then accept the extra effort it might take to find a position where you are accepted.

Finding a job if you have long hair is a lot like finding an apartment if you have a dog. If you really like your dog, or your long hair, you will just keep looking until you are successful. Think about it - all the people you see enjoying their dogs in the city's parks found apartments. And all the longhairs you see in the city's cafes found ways to support themselves. Most of them are working somewhere. If they succeeded, so can you!

Don't expect to find that magical place where most of the workers are longhairs. It is not likely to happen, because longhairs make up only about two to three percent of the adult male population. Most longhairs work where they are either the only one, or only one of a few. It's far easier to find a place where you will be accepted as a minority, than it is to track down a place where you will be in the majority. Longhairs are just too scarce.

If a potential employer wants to discuss your hair, offer to negotiate style, but never length. A style can be dissembled at five o'clock if you don't care for it. Length changes take so long to repair that the change will seem permanent.

You should never cut hair with the idea that you will "get the job and then grow it back". Longhairs report that it is far more difficult to grow long hair on a job than it is to keep it if you already had it. Employers will think, "He was shorthaired when I hired him, so he certainly can live with being shorthaired now!"

You should also not start a precedent of acquiescing to length-cutting requests. Once you've allowed them one such request, you have no assurance they will not keep coming back for more. Your yielding the first time will greatly weaken your position should repeat requests occur.

To all those long-haired men out there:-

get it cut you scruffy bastards!