Natural Beauty?

I got my hair cut on Saturday. It's pretty short -- shorter than it's been in awhile, in fact. George, the gentleman who cuts my hair, told me to be brave and not style it as much as I'm used to doing. He didn't say those words, but that's what he meant. What that comes down to is leaving it pretty straight with not as much body and product that I'm used to putting into it.

I went to a play after getting it cut where several people from church were also. They all complimented me on it and dared me to wear it like that to church the next day.

So I did. Or tried. Without George to make it perfect, I did the best I could. I only did a little bit of body in the crown (his recommendation) and left the rest of it straight and natural. I have fine hair. There's plenty of it, but it's fine. That, coupled with not a lot of body, means that it looks like I don't have a lot of it, since now the shape of my head is more skull-like without a lot of hair to shape it otherwise.

I got a few more compliments on my hair at church. (It actually is just about the same cut as I've had before, I'm just not styling it as much, so it does look very different.) I made sure to thank those people, then laughed explaining that it took a lot of control to NOT style it very much. I lamented to one woman that now you can tell how very little hair it actually looks like I have now since I'm not fluffing it up as much.

She chuckled as she reached up to her own hair (super cute, by the way), and said whatever it was (don't remember what) that bugs her about her own hairstyle.

It led us both to realize that we all spend a lot of time and effort covering up our (self-perceived) flaws and physical imperfections. We blow-dry and curl and style our hair to make it look different than it is or behaves naturally; we put on makeup to make ourselves look more "naturally" beautiful; we wear shoes to make us look taller; and the list goes on.

I pointed out that it was the ancient Egyptians who invented perfume to cover up their own body odor because they didn't bathe frequently enough.

"We are just a smelly, ugly, bald bunch of people, aren't we?" I said, laughing, to which she agreed.

And yet tomorrow I will bathe, using nice-smelling soaps and shampoos, I will put on deodorant so that I don't offend others (and myself!) with my own natural odor, and I will put on makeup to enhance my own features while trying to look natural, and I will "shape" my hair so that it falls perfectly naturally. After all, I don't want to look like I spent too much time on my appearance.