Great Hair for $7
The woman behind the desk perked up the moment I told her I’d just moved here a year ago. Or perhaps it was because I’d said how much I liked the place. Probably it was a combination of both. You don’t work for Planned Parenthood and not take a fair amount of pride in what you do. And you don’t stay in central New York for the rest of your life without wondering at least a little bit if things are better elsewhere. When I said how much I liked it, how glad I was not to be living in the Midwest any more, and how wonderfully direct I found the people to be, she smiled as if it were all her doing - Planned Parenthood, the superiority of the east coast to the Midwest, etc. And I suppose, in a way, it is. I was reminded all over again why I loved the East coast. You could take someone from cool disinterest to genuine warmth in a matter of a few seconds by being forthright and honest. This kind of behavior makes me breathe easier. So does being able to go to a Planned Parenthood without having to wade through a crowd of bastards who think they know what is best for my uterus.
I sat down in the lobby, which was empty, and filled out my paperwork. When I was finished I brought my stuff back to my new friend at the counter who told me it would just be a few minutes. I sat down and picked up a magazine called Real Simple. When this magazine came out a few years ago, it touted itself as the magazine to help you live more simply. It came out not too long after a book called Simplify Your Life and somehow I thought they were connected in some way. Simplification was like this mini-movement at the time. And there were all kinds of books with all kinds of advice, a lot of which seemed to make things a lot less simple because they started to sound less like advice and more like edicts the must be followed. Nevertheless, the book I read taught me a few very important things, like making my bed was probably a waste of time since I was only going to sleep in it later and mess it up again. And that I didn’t have to spend a fortune on face creams and cleansers, and that I didn’t even need to wear makeup in the first place (which I already didn’t). It told me to get a hair cut that was easy to manage and to not allow obligation and duty to trap me in a life where I felt controlled by people and things. This was the point of reference from which I approached this magazine. So when I opened it up and had to wade through twenty pages of Jones New York and LancÃ?Æ?Ã?´me ads before I even got to the table of contents, I was unnerved. Even the simple people are consumer whores!
I’m not sure that there is any real connection between the book and the magazine, excepting of course that one was part of a simplification movement and the other was our society’s marketing solution for the simple folk. Nevertheless, I have always been vaguely suspicious of it, because it always looks so beautiful on the magazine rack - a very perfect and slightly sterile beautiful. A sort of minimalist Martha Stewart, if you will.
I had really only picked it up for one specific reason. “Great Hair for $7″ it had said on the cover. And as my hair is currently the bane of my existence, the promise of great hair was an attractive lure. My expectations weren’t high, or anything. I have short hair. I want short hair that doesn’t cost me $42 every four weeks. Right now I am going on month six of not having had my haircut and it is starting to look like a cross between Dorothy Hammel and a mullet gone wrong (is there any other way for a mullet to go?). I keep telling myself that I am growing it out, but it’s really that I’m too cheap (or too poor, take your pick) to pay someone that much to give me a haircut. I’m too afraid to do it myself. And too weary of Supercuts and their McDonald’s version of a haircut. Great hair for $7 seemed very exciting to me.
I skipped all the ads and went straight for page 48, only to be disappointed by the article, which it turns out was a breakdown of hair styling products and their costs - all under $7. How do hair products make your life “Real Simple?” Stupid magazine.
December 14th, 2004 at 11:18 pm
Ahh yes, Real Simple…so tempting in appearance, yet repellant in motivation. I don’t believe it has any connection to Simplify Your Life, other than cashing in on and subverting the trend started by the book (and others like it.) “Oh no, a tiny portion of the American Consumerate is voluntarily cutting back on their consumption! How can we parlay their desire for simplicity into more bucks for us? Hmm…let’s think…uh…Hey! We’ll just SELL them simplicity!”
I find their covers so tempting–sterile, as you say, but also perfect and orderly and calming. But I’ve never given in and bought one, because the cynicism underlying the damn thing shimmers off it in dusty, choking waves.
I love SYL, btw. My favorite piece of advice in the whole book is the one about treating yourself to a night in bed by 9:00 p.m. at least once a week. She makes it sound like such a luxury–and truly, it is. I don’t do it nearly often enough, but it so happens I did last night, and those 9 1/2 hours of sleep did me a world of good.
December 16th, 2004 at 12:19 pm
OHMYGOSH, I feel the same way about that mag. Sometimes love the minimalist look, but it is often impractical. Worse than that, every single thing they tout in there is seven times more expensive than it has to be. Not to mention the ads, as you say. Yes, sure, “simplify” your life by spending $700 on a new set of sheets. Argh. Central New York, you say? Might I ask where? My daughter is in college in Clinton.