QuoteReplyTopic: Were the 70's That Great? Posted: December 04 2007 at 4:45pm
As a guy who was a teen in the 70's, I was stunned by a recent thread that I read about all the long, splendid hair of this era. Seems to me that this thinking is rose-colored hindsight. First, there were virtually NO women over 30 with appreciable locks, and the younger gals with length usually frayed theirs with plastic brushes. Yes, there were SOME incredible heads of hair, but they were a distinct minority. This is to be forgiven, since there were no long-tressed moms to teach their girls hair care. Moreover, most of the "long" hair was only BS length, anyway.
In fact, most manes were so mediocre-looking that throughout HS I thought that really sensuous long tresses existed as the domain of a special few.
I'd love to know how the rest of you view the 70's. To me, *today's* long styles, in general, (forgetting all those sloppy layer cuts) look far superior to those of the so-called Halcyon era of long locks. Blessings, Bob
Parted down the middle with no bangs isn't the most flattering style on most of us! I don't remember 70s hair that much, I remember seeing some nice long 70s hair on tv back then. Maybe people are just remembering glorious tv hair? Actually I remember more people with longer than bsl lengths in the 80s (usually with bangs, perms, layers, and sometimes funky colors in it...I guess those styles were too close to mullet to be remembered fondly!)
Making metal barettes/concord clips hair safe, long hair style how to: http://alonghair.wordpress.com
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Being a teenager in the 70's, I had long hair. Yes, parted down the middle straight 1 length. I remember too, we didn't have detangler shampoo or conditioners back then, or maybe my Mom just didn't buy them for me. But, it seems that I remember that stuff coming out in the 80's.
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Raquel Welch I recall her late 60's looks. Thanks Fat.
Few men are killed by the bayonet;many are scared by it.Bayonets should be fixed when the fire fight starts.General George Patton Jr.,War As I Knew It,1947.
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Out of 135 girls in my HS class, only three maybe had hair as mesmerising as Marcia and Jan Brady! And only one of those had hair as long. I can think of several that I WISH had grown their hair like the Brady girls'. (lol) Bob
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Ah yes....Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! Parted down the middle and all one length isn't supposed to be flattering, but I sure thought she was hot LOL! I should have liked Jan because she had longer and better hair, but Marcia just did it for me for some reason.
It was a mighty long time before I was born so I've no memories, but my mum wanted to be Cher, and in the 70s had amazing long, near black hair to her waist which was so thick that people thought it was a wig when it was curled. But it was difficult to maintain. As paper said, the shampoos were nothing like they are now, and conditioners were new. Even the plastic based fibres for clothing must have been a staticy nightmare; I have enough 70s dresses to know that back zips on polyester aren't going to be best of friends with your hair.
And they didn't have the internet to exchange tips on
I'm with enfys, it was wayyyy before I was born, but looking through my Mom's yearbook (she graduated in '70, I think) there was some pretty, uh, weird hair. There were girls with fairly long, absolutely smooth straight hair, but Mom talks about girls ironing their hair on the ironing board to get it that way. She was always too scared to do it, though!
Current length: approx. 52"
Goal length: Infinity :)
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Princess Furball, my mum did that too! Not very often though...my nana used to complain about having to doit for her, and all the baking sheet paper it took up!
We don't have much to complain about nowadays, compared haha.
Bob, I wasn't aware we were about the same age, but my 70s memories are filled with longhaired girls.
My elementary-school crushes had waistlength hair.
My first girlfriend had Marcia-length hair. In fact, her name is Marcia and, I dare say, remains hotter than Marcia Brady to this day.
My New Year's date (1973, I think) had waistlength hair.
My senior prom date (an Asian beauty who was also our class valedictorian) had waistlength hair.
The gal I dated (and eventually married) had/has Marcia-length hair, or longer.
In college, my most memorable assignment was a one-on-one interview of Debra Jo Fondren of Playboy fame for my university newspaper. As you know, DJF had hair to her knees back then.
All of that during the 70s.
Were longhaired women in the minority? Certainly -- and they still are today, dang it.
But thanks for the trip down Memory Lane.
Ally<3
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I turned 10 in 1970, went to high school from 1974 to 1978, and then was in college for the rest of the 1970's. As I recall, long, one-length, parted in the middle hair with no bangs was very popular early in the 1970s. Some of my friends got "shag" haircuts a la Jane Fonda in Klute early in the 1970s, say around 1974, but most kept the long, one-length look until the mid-70s.
In the mid-1970s, the long one-length look that most young women had ahd for years began to change. First the Dorothy Hamill wedge cut, the "Dorothy 'do," caught on after the 1976 Winter Olympics that she was in. Next, the "Farrah cut" popularized by Farrah Fawcett in Charlie's Angels, with lots of side feathering, became very popular in the mid to late 1970's. Many of my friends got that cut; my old high school yearbooks show that as very popular.
In the late 1970's, when I was in college, few of us still had long one-length hair; many had shoulder length Farrah 'dos or even shorter variations of the Farrah feathered look, based on old yearbooks.
Long one-length hair seems much more common now among high school and college young women than it was in the late 1970's, but no more common than the early 1970's. One difference now is fewer parts right down the middle; most young women with long hair seem to have off center parts, or long bangs, or other changes from the "middle part no bangs" look of the early 1970's (& late 1960's).
I do think women's hair is in general much healthier now than in the 1970's, with many more product options and more widespread knowledge of healthy hair practices.
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The wedge was the only "short" trend that I actually enjoyed. To think that Dorothy Hamill herself hated it! (lol) The shags were gruesome, and left many a long mane a hay-like mess in their wake. The Farrah look was decent, but they took way too much time to style, and often looked stiff.
Yeah, Katherine, the "70's" were actually about a five year period from 1969 to 1974, with many starting from Mia crop grow-outs. But the *nice* looking long tresses, even during the best years, were few and far between, and I can't remember ever seeing a *woman* in that day who wore her hair impressively long and well-groomed. Than God for today! Bob
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Bob
There were girls with fairly long, absolutely smooth straight hair, but Mom talks about girls ironing their hair on the ironing board to get it that way. 
She was always too scared to do it, though!
Bob