Women reaching 40 and Short Hair

[Small Man Big Horse]

My Sister hit 40 last year, and all of a sudden a lot of her older friends are trying to persuade her to have short hair. Just because they do. Like some kind of crazy conspiracy. But the thing is that she suits long hair, as did her friends before they suddenly decided to go short and then look oddly masculine.

Now a very attractive friend has cut her hair short, and I no longer want to have sex with her! God knows why she made such an appalling decision (she's married, and so safe from my lustful ways), but I can only imagine she was influenced by some evil sorts who didn't have her best interests at heart.

Some women do suit short hair of course, but I've noticed more and more that as they reach this age they go short, and never look attractive again in their lives. Okay, it's not as if they've had perms (which would of course mean my ending the friendship) but it's still a terrible idea, and I don't know why they're doing it.

So has anyone else noticed this? Or have any idea why it's happening?

[El Unicornio, mang]

I rest my case.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

You have to be a very exceptional looking woman to look sexy with short hair. Most of time it can just make a girl look like a weird boy.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Short hair is less hassle than long. I guess these women just aren't bothered about looking attractive any more.

[Buelligan]

Mmm.  Interesting this, there does seem to be a general pressure/consensus that women must cut their hair to shoulder-length or shorter on hitting 40, I just googled it and found lots of whinging mimsies going on about it. 

I can only think it stems from the ancient idea that women put their hair "up" after marriage.  Either that or it's a cynical conspiracy on the part of fashion-mongers to extract more money from worried women. 

Your sister's friends are just a bunch of jealous insecure foxes who've cut off their tails to spite their botties.

[Cerys]

I'm due to turn forty in four months' time.  My hair is currently chest-length.  I'll keep you posted.

[Too Many Cochranes]

Were you making a point, El Unicornio, mang, that it's the age and not the hair length (in that case)?

Anyway, there's someone I know with short hair that I really fancy. She's elfin and quite skinny though, not unlike a 90's Winona Ryder. In fact, typing this I've just realised that's who she reminds me of.

So does short hair only 'work' on skinny ladies?

[El Unicornio, mang]

Were you making a point, El Unicornio, mang, that it's the age and not the hair length (in that case)?

Just a slightly tongue-in-cheek example of long hair>short hair which is slightly unfair as she is in her 50s in the second one.

[biggytitbo]

[rudi]

Sharon Stone laughs - LAUGHS - at your prejudice.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think this is a pattern that begins in the 30s, and in some cases the late 20s. Women's hair just gets shorter and duller. The only women who look good with short hair are very young looking and elfen. Sharon Stone gets away with it because she moves and talks and looks like she wants to fuck anything that moves. That's exceptional- and even then she looks better with longer hair.

I haven't really encountered a woman who didn't look better with their hair long. It's even more important as you get older, women reading this.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Sharon Stone laughs - LAUGHS - at your prejudice.

There's always exceptions to the rule (the aforementioned Winona Ryder looks very cute with short hair) but they are few and far between.

I'm intrigued by those women who pressure others to be 'shorthairs' like themselves. What kind of sick entity would do such a thing? I mean women with curly hair don't try and get others to have perms. They know they've been cursed with rubbish hair, and wouldn't wish it on another living creature.

[biggytitbo]

Old woman are wise and they know that shorter hair is less maintenance.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Old woman are wise and they know that shorter hair is less maintenance.

Wise? They 30 quid a pop on special youth creams.

[biggytitbo]

Wise? They 30 quid a pop on special youth creams.

That's Primula! It's lower maintenance than ordinary cheese.

[Buelligan]

Old woman are wise and they know that shorter hair is less maintenance.

This is untrue.  Unless you cut your own hair,  a short hair cut is expensive (both in time and money) to maintain.  Long hair is just wash and wear, short hair involves endless primping and fettling and for what?  So's you can look exactly like all the other people who've been styled by that stylist but with a different face glued on.  Dull, dull, dull.

[biggytitbo]

This is untrue.  Unless you cut your own hair,  a short hair cut is expensive (both in time and money) to maintain.  Long hair is just wash and wear, short hair involves endless primping and fettling and for what?  So's you can look exactly like all the other people who've been styled by that stylist but with a different face glued on.  Dull, dull, dull.

I've got short hair[nb]So short it invisible in some places[/nb] and I spend precisely fuck all time doing anything to it.


One caveat. I'm not an old woman.

[Buelligan]

Exactly, you chimpleton.

[23 Daves]

I first noticed this peer pressure pattern when I was 22, actually - my then-girlfriend's close friend got a short hair cut, and she said to me confidently: "I think I'm going to get one too!" I then rather tactlessly let slip the fact that she had entirely the wrong face shape and really wouldn't suit one, at which point she went into a very long, drawn-out, moody sulk about what I was "trying to say about how she looked" (I never thought she was anything less than beautiful, but she did have quite a round face and the whole "short hair" thing wouldn't have worked).

She never did get it cut short, though.  I saved her from that, unlike some daft sods in her social circle who almost immediately regretted their decisions and ended up spending months growing it back.

Truth be told her friend did look fantastic with cropped hair, and there are some women out there I think look better with short hair - I think, for example, that when some women with quite pale skin and heart-shaped faces get their hair cropped and dyed blonde or red, they can look quite punky and sexy.  It totally depends.  There's a female acquaintance of mine I genuinely think looks better now with short hair than she ever has done before. 

Ditto men with long hair - some men with very square jaws just end up looking like Curtis Stigers, which surely can't have been their original intentions.  And as my Mum pointed out, my Dad ended up looking like Richard III when he had long hair, she was very persuasive about him not paying too much heed to the dominant fashions of the early seventies. People don't seem to have much self-awareness about hairstyles, something that's horribly apparent when you look back through old photos.  The fashions of the time dominate over what they would best suit. 

[Icehaven]

I have noticed this phenomenon, but more in the case of much older women (which I one day hope to be) always, almost without exception,  having very short hair. The only much older women (by which I mean 60+) with long hair tend to look like, and often be, hippy earth mother types (which I hope to never be). I agree with the fact that short hair can make middle aged and older women look a little masculine*, and I've always thought there's something a little sad about much older women going on about having their hair done and all, when it's really short and thin and the intention is clearly to try and make it look thicker but it's never really going to because they're old. But then when I get to that age I don't want people to think I may possibly enjoy Folk music, so I'll probably end up having it short and looking like a chap.


(*Massive seeming paradox though; I frequently find younger women who have short (but not too short) blokey haircuts because they're gay and going for a nice dykey look extremely attractive, but that could just be because I often find androgyny in general damned sexy.) (yeah yeah, cue pics of Grayson Perry or Hufty and so on.)

[Saucer51]

I agree that style, face shape etc is everything:


The sexy Javier Bardem, transferred into something quite ghastly, below:

[Mr Eggs]

^ GHASTLY!? I'd kill to look like a youthful Bernard Breslaw.

[Thursday]

Isn't it just that hair get's less full and lustrous when women reach that age, so it stops looking good when it's long and gets much harder to maintain? There may well be women convincing other women with sexy long hair to cut it short out of jealousy though.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Naga Munchetty looks good with short hair, even when she's autographing Neville Chamberlain's willy after her name's faded off again.

[Mr Eggs]

^ Looks like a syrup made of glued on seaweed. Awful hair.

[kngen]

I'd just presumed that grey hairs are easier to dye/remove/burn off when your hair is short, because most women don't want to look like Gandalf as they get on. Personally, I'm just sad that the bejewelled turban a la Norma Desmond is no longer the default headgear for ladies of a certain age. Looks like fun to me - why would you not want to parade around in that when you're in the high street getting your pension?

[Replies From View]

The only women who look good with short hair are very young looking and elfen.

I was going to say there's nothing wrong with short hair on women, and realised that it probably doesn't suit all women.  Maybe I'm just attracted to elfen types.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Big long grey ponytail that looks like a length of frayed rope; that's the alternative. Sit down on it all the time. Have kids in the street tug on it and shout 'BING BONG ANY CUNT HOME?!' at you. Worry about it drooping into the bog when you go to have a nice big dump, then having to wring it out and dry it in a Dyson Airblade. That's the alternative.

[Too Many Cochranes]

If that's the case I'm never going out with a long-hair from now on. I hate those Airblade's. Why can't they focus on making the hand driers quieter rather than mooooaaaar powwwaaaaa? Airblade's are an abomination.

[Mr Eggs]

^ Know you of anyone who has pissed in a dyson airblade? I am always tempted but fear a ferocious mist of piss would engulf mi tweeds. £10 for anyone who does (Pictorial evidence required unless a rugby league referee from this list:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_rugby_league_referees  acts as witness)

Get to it.