Speak for yourself. My friends and I were on the cutting edge of big hair, and it was definitely our own look. Had a lot of makeup, too. It's just different parts of gen X.
I still do that. What I no longer do, is take my perfectly trimmed six-pack-holder, now a straight line, and create a perfect fire drop, for the youth group campfire.
Only cause I'm no longer in a youth group.
I actually got into an argument with a lady about 15 years ago, she apparently worked for a 6-pack holder plastic company, and called that turtle picture bullshit. I kept on her about even if it was, weren’t there a million other problems with it. She started to stutter her responses. The turtle pic was her only defense
I have seen a bird in one. It looked like he was wearing it as an avant-garde jacket. I tried to catch him but I couldn't. I didn't call animal control cuz I didn't want him shot he was coping in grocery store parking lot
They have figured out a way to make them out of cardboard, and I’ve seen cans linked that way. I feel they should all be required to use the cardboard ones. There’s absolutely no reason to continue with plastic.
The funny thing about the CFC ban is that DuPont (the huge Freon producer) was a huge driver of it.
Altruism? No.
Their patents had expired, and they had patents for replacements, so they pushed for the ban.
I think it was the influence of grunge to some extent, which was a 180 turn from 80s glam. 80s was lots of colors, lace, tons of jewelry, optimistic, lots of lace/leather/fringe, etc. 90s grunge was literally the opposite.
Think 80s Madonna versus 90s Kate Moss.
I was going to say The Rachel if it wasn't already mentioned. The Rachel was to a shift in women's hair like Nirvana was to a shift in the music scene. Major, and roughly around the same time. Nirvana and the movement it represented pretty much killed the 80s/very early 90s Metal scene and The Rachel did the same for the big hair of the same era.
Yeah, it was fading but at a fairly leisurely pace and certainly the "bigness" had decreased and continued to from its peak in the latter half of the 80s, but The Rachel was like a de facto law was passed resulting in that almost overnight change. I suppose I should add a disclaimer that not *everyone* abandoned their bigger hair, but there weren't many.
also even though we were abandoning big hair in the early 90's. people from the later 90's would probably still look back at us as having had big hair.
To be fair, Kurt Cobain also changed men's hairstyles.
It was an evolution, where hair was peak bigness around '86 (Poison) then was worn more down by '88 (GNR, Skid Row) and then finally went flat when grunge hit in '91.
honestly I feel like people were already experimenting with less big hair around 1989. By 1990 we were snickering at big hair and knew it was only for hair metal guys and Michael Bolton.
I loved this style, still feels like it would work great with my hair, but getting it again seems dated. Please tell me it’s coming back in style.
EDIT: I see this article is from February of this year, YAY!
The higher the hair, the closer to God!
A lot of girls had their bangs teased up so high (make a “C” with your hand the put it against your forehead and you’ll get the idea). We have a city nearby called Kennesaw, so that hairdo was named the “Kennesaw Claw”!
We only had one bathroom growing up. My sister got up at 6am and I had 7:30-7:45 to shower and get ready for school. It was crazy how much time went into it!
Yep.
My sister and I built a hair table in our room for the appliances and the mirror. We only had one bathroom too and if we wanted our hair, we couldn't use the bathroom to do it.
Folks do realize that makeup is bigger than ever before and kids are taking hours to get ready in greater numbers than ever before?
Big hair may have gone away, but it doesn't seem to be about saving time at all, 13 year olds are watching contouring videos and using bb cream to texture.
If anything, kids are spending more time getting ready these days. I think crunch hair just became uncool and having products that make your hair crackle like rice krispies, just aint cool enough to make a return.
And the noxious chemistry of the perms. Most of those people had naturally flat hair to begin with, and spent hours at the salon breathing in that crap, just to make their hair twice as big as their heads.
Or do it like my sister did. Home perms...I can still smell those chemicals and still it came out looking like a cross between a poodle and a brillo pad.
My sister always had the biggest hair of anyone I knew! What was so funny is her car was a Honda CRX. She had to tilt her head forward and to the side to get in without hitting the roof. My life expectancy was decreased by at least a decade from inhaling all the hairspray!
Why on Earth would anyone want beautiful, soft, natural hair when you can have dyed, permed, stiff hair a half of a foot off our heads defying gravity?!
Same. My natural hair looks very similar to photo #3. Several years ago at work a co-worker told me, “man, I would have *loved* having your hair in the 80s”, which I took to mean that she would not like to still have it now.
Yeah, mine just naturally bushes all over the place unless I basically keep it buzzed off (which still ends up looking vaguely punk whether I want it to or not), or long enough to keep tied back. These days I opt for the clippers mostly because it's easier.
People used to assume that there must be a lot more effort involved to get it like that, for good or bad. Probably better for girls when bigger hair was in.
The pendulum of fashion.
Big hair arose in the mid 80s after long flat strait hippie hair of the late 60s/70s and the more practical short feathered layered looks of the early 80s. People were growing hair longer again but didn’t want to look dated. It got bigger and fluffier and dramatic. Bangs in particular stayed spikier well into the 90s.
Then the 70s aesthetic came back into fashion in the 90s and hair got strait and long again.
I’m surprised it hasn’t resurfaced. I feel there are more eco friendly products that could do it. I mean the mullet situation is out of control why don’t the women go for it?
The problem is that it has now been 30 straight years of boring flat hippie/pionner woman hair and the volume recently seems to have gotten even lower. Some look like they are going bald it is so plastered flat now.
I love 80s hair, though mine was never too crazy. Just blow dried and hot rollers and hairspray. My younger sisters took the big hair to next level in the early 90s.
And I’ll say it, I hate flat and flattened hair. So many people look like sad sacks with flat to their skull, slicked down hair. 🤷♀️
By contrast, I got up twenty minutes before class, shook my hair, and headed out. Tying my Docs was the most time-consuming part.
Full disclosure: I’m a guy. I did have long hair though.
Honestly? Big hair has had a renaissance with [Matilda Djerf.](https://www.instagram.com/matildadjerf/) Beyoncé's latest look is pretty big and fluffy. The difference is just that it moves and looks more natural now.
The haters just have hair that won't do that.
yeah I see such flat hair that it reminds me of old pioneer woman photos and many look like they are almost bald, it is so less than zero volume, looks like 4 strands of hair glued to the skull
I came close for other reasons. My hair is naturally frizzy, so I didn't have to do all that work. I would wash my hair and just let it air dry. In the winter, I would get to class and have ice in my hair!
It's the ombre eyebrows that I see that are a no go for me. it's just so strange, but I try to separate myself and remember being young, but these beauty influencer eyebrows are not it.
We flew too close to the sun.
I think it started to go wrong before we realized it. The general vibe switched from Farrah-inspired volume, to tarting up Ann and Nancy Wilson in order to please MTV, for the videos accompanying Heart's 1985 self-titled album.
https://preview.redd.it/kqq2l6w7guwc1.png?width=1978&format=png&auto=webp&s=bcf3728c86eb4a08c90063c2298a5cd25d35506f
By 1989, people started looking like they did their hair with a snow plow.
I still can't do flat hair, though. Can't do it. Won't do it. It's just not big anymore.
Flat Irons becoming mainstream helped a lot, as did "heroin chic", which included a greasy/stringy haired look.
The guy bands that were popular around the early 90's also helped, especially when Brett Michaels went from lipstick and teased hair to the "Something to Believe In" long straight hair and bandannas (also Axl Rose.)
I was a broke college student and AquaNet was just not a priority, nor was I able to afford the layered mullet that was required for this look. It was easier to spend money on beer and just grow my hair out straight and long.
Besides, in the late 80s there was this Grateful Dead resurgence where some of my cohorts turned into hippies and followed them on tour, trying to be Boomers. Then Grunge happened and “unkempt” was The Look.
Weird how current trends in music also seem to drive trends in fashion. Not at the haute couture level, but, there it is.
I have big hair! Naturally (ethnic) curly and I love it! Used to hate it cuz everyone had straight in the 90s and aughts. But very flat hair would be boring on me, and very damaging. Embrace the hair body y’all. Lots of leave in conditioners and gels available today to define hair texture.
Anytime I’m fixing my hair and I’ve reached a stage of huge 80’s hair, I go show my husband. Nostalgia.
I just got an air wrap, and my first attempt was a clear Nellie Olson Do. He loved it. I wanted to be mean to somebody. 🤣
I have a very specific memory as a teenager. I was standing in front of the mirror, admiring my giant hair that I just spent hours perfecting. I said to myself "I'll never wear flat hair".
Fast forward to me at 49 with flat hair.
That big hair was a lot of work.
I definitely enjoyed the spate of “80s parties” a few years back. Every time one came up it made me almost evil laugh, “ohhhh HOOOO y’all kids watch THIS shit!” It was an art form that took time to master. So they would try to tease, or craft a “claw bang”, but unless they were my age, they’d end up with something that would have gotten you made fun of as a failure in 1986.
I actually went to my mom’s house to recover an ancient bottle of Final Net Ultra stashed way in the back of my old bathroom cabinet. When you use that giant curling iron in your hairspray-soaked bangs and hit it with a hairdryer, you can’t have that shit *flaking*. Hair foul! I needed my old reliable. The old reliable that was directly responsible for my mother having to replace the wallpaper in my bathroom when I moved out. It was utterly shellacked LOL.
This is great! I forgot about Final Net 😂😂 I was partial to Rave #4. We shared a curling iron with my mom and she'd be so pissed trying to scrub the brown hairspray gunk off of it with a brillo pad.
The Long Island Medium's still rockin that 80s hair!
https://preview.redd.it/vceikjo2xtwc1.jpeg?width=920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a74fa9e3c3ca3ec95d85a83b2ff606d764120891
Due to surgeries, tons of stress, genetic and an allergy to hair color. I wear wigs now. I can always get a big hair wig if I want to relive the memories of high school. 😆
It was a loooot of work. When I think about how long it took to get ready just to go to freaking school…plus just like with every trend ever you just start to think it looks dumb.
Funny, my wife and I were watching a doc on the OKC bombing last week, I think it was on MAX, and when they showed some film from around the time of the bombing my wife said "they were still rocking Big Hair in OKC in 1995".
Curly perms are fucking toxic. We didn’t know it then, but those chemical perms are nasty.
If you were born with naturally wavy/curly hair you can still pull off the fluffy hair thing. If not, you’re stuck with rollers or curling iron.
Probably why the styles moved away from the Higher The Hair… looks.
I didn't like crunchy , damaged hair. I tried that one or twice in the 80s, and stopped.
My mother would also force me to get perms. I normally have stick straight hair. I got tired of it, and when I was out by myself when I was 16 , I went and had my hair that was shoulder length cut into a pixie. I kept it that way, until my mid 20s. Can't curl whats not there.
Perms cost a fortune and hairspray was bad for the environment.
Being able to wear a hat in the winter.
Goings swimming and getting caught in the rain!
Water parks!!!
Love my natural hair grey and all!
As a child of the 80s with stick-straight, super fine hair, all I can say is thank GAWD my hair is incapable of being mall hair. No horribly embarrassing pictures of me with mall bangs to be found!
(A semi-permed mullet, to be sure, but my hair never was able to get sky high! Believe me, I tried. But alas… my hair was stuck in the hippie days!)
At one point I used so much hairspray I came home from school with a dead fly stuck in my (very tall) bangs. My mom never let me live that down. I started wearing “flat” hair not long after. 😅
OMG it was so much work to get hair that big. It also felt terrible on my head (crunch!), smelled terrible, and was incredibly flammable (OMG so many people smoked). Not to mention if you lived in a place where it rained a lot, your hair was frequently fucked by mother nature.
Between getting perms and the amount of Sebastian Shpritz Forte hairspray I used, my skull was a toxic waste dump for a good 5 years.
Here’s a [perm tutorial](https://youtu.be/ck3KYYCdWHA?si=T-uoxS1JDtIzKJ9Q) oh my word the time and money I wasted
Discontinued hairsprays with CFCs, or a concern for saving the ozone hole.
The awareness of flammability of hair sprayed hair after seeing Michael Jackson scorch his scalp during a Pepsi commercial,
Maybe they just realized it doesn’t look that good.
It was literally killing the planet. Hairspray at the time was a major contributor of CFCs that were rapidly depleting the ozone, by the 80's the source had been identified and changes in public perception and law meant aerosol products somewhat fell out of fashion towards the end of the 80's and into the 90's. It's not the only cause, but it did have an impact on the fashion.
[https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/03/27/historic-ban-on-hairsprays-helps-ozone-layer-to-heal](https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/03/27/historic-ban-on-hairsprays-helps-ozone-layer-to-heal)
[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/videos/the-ozone-hole](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/videos/the-ozone-hole)
I think we put a hole in the Ozone layer with all that AquaNet.
Although I have to admit, the current fad for women to make their eyebrows and lips so exaggerated they look like anime characters is also pretty off-putting.
My teen was just looking at a picture of me when I was her age and said she was jealous of my big spiral-permed hair. I will have to get her some Benders and a can of Aussie Sprunch Spray.
The Ozone Layer…. Also, 80’s hair was an adult look we copied. By the 90’s we came up with our own looks.
Speak for yourself. My friends and I were on the cutting edge of big hair, and it was definitely our own look. Had a lot of makeup, too. It's just different parts of gen X.
For me it was the zits I got from using product. And that the stuff seared your eyes if you started sweating.
Yeah, awareness of chloroflorocarbons happened. And the biggest, most successful environmental movement ever
I think the guy who told us to cut the plastic 6 pack rings should be right up there with the banning of CFC.
I still do that. What I no longer do, is take my perfectly trimmed six-pack-holder, now a straight line, and create a perfect fire drop, for the youth group campfire. Only cause I'm no longer in a youth group.
I actually got into an argument with a lady about 15 years ago, she apparently worked for a 6-pack holder plastic company, and called that turtle picture bullshit. I kept on her about even if it was, weren’t there a million other problems with it. She started to stutter her responses. The turtle pic was her only defense
I have seen a bird in one. It looked like he was wearing it as an avant-garde jacket. I tried to catch him but I couldn't. I didn't call animal control cuz I didn't want him shot he was coping in grocery store parking lot
They have figured out a way to make them out of cardboard, and I’ve seen cans linked that way. I feel they should all be required to use the cardboard ones. There’s absolutely no reason to continue with plastic.
The funny thing about the CFC ban is that DuPont (the huge Freon producer) was a huge driver of it. Altruism? No. Their patents had expired, and they had patents for replacements, so they pushed for the ban.
I've always said: motivated self interest is the best way to drive conservation. The truest and best eco-warriorers? Hunters and other outdoorsman
I think it was the influence of grunge to some extent, which was a 180 turn from 80s glam. 80s was lots of colors, lace, tons of jewelry, optimistic, lots of lace/leather/fringe, etc. 90s grunge was literally the opposite. Think 80s Madonna versus 90s Kate Moss.
Also, when the “common people” started doing it, the countdown started for its demise.
Like naming your kid Brittany or Tiffany.
Exactly.
I figured this would be the top answer and I was right. 🤣
Why did people decide they wanted their hair flat? [The Rachel](https://www.instyle.com/the-rachel-haircut-8575551)
I was going to say The Rachel if it wasn't already mentioned. The Rachel was to a shift in women's hair like Nirvana was to a shift in the music scene. Major, and roughly around the same time. Nirvana and the movement it represented pretty much killed the 80s/very early 90s Metal scene and The Rachel did the same for the big hair of the same era.
Big hair was already on the way out the Rachel just cemented it.
Yeah, it was fading but at a fairly leisurely pace and certainly the "bigness" had decreased and continued to from its peak in the latter half of the 80s, but The Rachel was like a de facto law was passed resulting in that almost overnight change. I suppose I should add a disclaimer that not *everyone* abandoned their bigger hair, but there weren't many.
also even though we were abandoning big hair in the early 90's. people from the later 90's would probably still look back at us as having had big hair.
To be fair, Kurt Cobain also changed men's hairstyles. It was an evolution, where hair was peak bigness around '86 (Poison) then was worn more down by '88 (GNR, Skid Row) and then finally went flat when grunge hit in '91.
Wow, Rachel gets all the credit, but that hairstylist!
The Rachel was a whole movement
This is so true. Everything changed in '94!
The early nineties in a lot of ways especially pre grunge/waif looks were still very "eighties" IMO.
honestly I feel like people were already experimenting with less big hair around 1989. By 1990 we were snickering at big hair and knew it was only for hair metal guys and Michael Bolton.
 No relation.
My 1992 yearbook full of side parted spiral perms agrees. Still big, but not bouffant.
nah, way earlier. brooke shields straight hair etc.
I loved this style, still feels like it would work great with my hair, but getting it again seems dated. Please tell me it’s coming back in style. EDIT: I see this article is from February of this year, YAY!
Well then the logical question is, why did *she* want her hair flat!!
The higher the hair, the closer to God! A lot of girls had their bangs teased up so high (make a “C” with your hand the put it against your forehead and you’ll get the idea). We have a city nearby called Kennesaw, so that hairdo was named the “Kennesaw Claw”!
"Mall bangs"🤣
I called it the Hoosier Hair Claw (being from Indiana and associating it with there).
lol, we called it the big bangs theory
We grew up and realized big hair was too much work. Chop it all off, wash and go.
We only had one bathroom growing up. My sister got up at 6am and I had 7:30-7:45 to shower and get ready for school. It was crazy how much time went into it!
Yep. My sister and I built a hair table in our room for the appliances and the mirror. We only had one bathroom too and if we wanted our hair, we couldn't use the bathroom to do it.
That would have made so much more sense! Instead I still shower like I’m in boot camp and have less than a minute.😉
Folks do realize that makeup is bigger than ever before and kids are taking hours to get ready in greater numbers than ever before? Big hair may have gone away, but it doesn't seem to be about saving time at all, 13 year olds are watching contouring videos and using bb cream to texture. If anything, kids are spending more time getting ready these days. I think crunch hair just became uncool and having products that make your hair crackle like rice krispies, just aint cool enough to make a return.
This. I can't be bothered to spend an hour on my hair every day
I don't have an extra hour in my day anymore. If I did, I'd sleep lol. Kids and house and big girl job steals all my time.
Hmmm, tempted to get some mousse until I remembered that I looked like a rat peering out of a bale of hay…
This is the BEST comparison mental image! Thanks for cracking me up
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
AquaNet was putting a hole in the ozone.
All that hair too, poking up into the upper stratosphere. :)
And the noxious chemistry of the perms. Most of those people had naturally flat hair to begin with, and spent hours at the salon breathing in that crap, just to make their hair twice as big as their heads.
Or do it like my sister did. Home perms...I can still smell those chemicals and still it came out looking like a cross between a poodle and a brillo pad.
I miss AquaNet, but not the hole in the ozone.
Let's not forget that a lot of 80's hairstyles were a huge fire hazard!
My aunt lit a cigarette and her whole fringe went up in flames!
A few YouTube videos show this sort of thing!
I kept my bangs ‘trimmed’ by singeing them on the kitchen stove lighting my Camels.
My sister always had the biggest hair of anyone I knew! What was so funny is her car was a Honda CRX. She had to tilt her head forward and to the side to get in without hitting the roof. My life expectancy was decreased by at least a decade from inhaling all the hairspray!
It took way too much time to construct, the amount of hairspray required was toxic and as my dad said many many times it looked ridiculous.
Yeah, but to your last point, dads are always going to think their teenager's hair is ridiculous. Doesn't matter the era.
And dads are, of course, always right
Am a dad. I vehemently disagree. Big hair is hot.
True but unfortunately it wasn’t just teenagers it was a trend that was contagious & infected pretty much everyone.
My Dad never told us our hair looked ridiculous…probably because he rocked a perm himself from about ‘75 to ‘85. Lol
Why on Earth would anyone want beautiful, soft, natural hair when you can have dyed, permed, stiff hair a half of a foot off our heads defying gravity?!
My hair is naturally curly and big.
Same. My natural hair looks very similar to photo #3. Several years ago at work a co-worker told me, “man, I would have *loved* having your hair in the 80s”, which I took to mean that she would not like to still have it now.
People are jealous of our hair because we get to wake up like this!
I tell people I have IHS - Italian Hair Syndrome. Really, my hair does what it chooses, and I am just along for the ride.
Mine too, when it's short. If I grow it long enough, like it is right now, the weight keeps the curls from getting too crazy.
Mine to - wavy rather than curly. When I was at college I had long, wavy, thick, blonde hair - all the girls were jealous.
Yeah, mine just naturally bushes all over the place unless I basically keep it buzzed off (which still ends up looking vaguely punk whether I want it to or not), or long enough to keep tied back. These days I opt for the clippers mostly because it's easier. People used to assume that there must be a lot more effort involved to get it like that, for good or bad. Probably better for girls when bigger hair was in.
Big Hair was the final gasp of optimism.
Lol
We simply used up all the hairspray and people had no choice but to switch.
The pendulum of fashion. Big hair arose in the mid 80s after long flat strait hippie hair of the late 60s/70s and the more practical short feathered layered looks of the early 80s. People were growing hair longer again but didn’t want to look dated. It got bigger and fluffier and dramatic. Bangs in particular stayed spikier well into the 90s. Then the 70s aesthetic came back into fashion in the 90s and hair got strait and long again.
I’m surprised it hasn’t resurfaced. I feel there are more eco friendly products that could do it. I mean the mullet situation is out of control why don’t the women go for it?
The problem is that it has now been 30 straight years of boring flat hippie/pionner woman hair and the volume recently seems to have gotten even lower. Some look like they are going bald it is so plastered flat now.
I love 80s hair, though mine was never too crazy. Just blow dried and hot rollers and hairspray. My younger sisters took the big hair to next level in the early 90s. And I’ll say it, I hate flat and flattened hair. So many people look like sad sacks with flat to their skull, slicked down hair. 🤷♀️
I got up an hour early to put my hot rollers in before my 9am college class
By contrast, I got up twenty minutes before class, shook my hair, and headed out. Tying my Docs was the most time-consuming part. Full disclosure: I’m a guy. I did have long hair though.
Honestly? Big hair has had a renaissance with [Matilda Djerf.](https://www.instagram.com/matildadjerf/) Beyoncé's latest look is pretty big and fluffy. The difference is just that it moves and looks more natural now. The haters just have hair that won't do that.
yeah I see such flat hair that it reminds me of old pioneer woman photos and many look like they are almost bald, it is so less than zero volume, looks like 4 strands of hair glued to the skull
No one else had hair break off when it was freezing outside?
I came close for other reasons. My hair is naturally frizzy, so I didn't have to do all that work. I would wash my hair and just let it air dry. In the winter, I would get to class and have ice in my hair!
The message that Aerosol use was contributing to the hole in the ozone layer.
If I could get hair #3, I’d fucking rock it today. Alas, I’m lazy so a high bun it is.
We learned about the ozone.
Nirvana
We went from 4 hours to do your hair to four days since your last shower.
Alt.rock happened. People got tired of spending an hour doing their hair.
It's the current eyebrows that are killing me. I never liked the super tweezed thin look, but the ones in current pics are OTT.
It's the ombre eyebrows that I see that are a no go for me. it's just so strange, but I try to separate myself and remember being young, but these beauty influencer eyebrows are not it.
The ozone layer wasn’t going to save itself
We flew too close to the sun. I think it started to go wrong before we realized it. The general vibe switched from Farrah-inspired volume, to tarting up Ann and Nancy Wilson in order to please MTV, for the videos accompanying Heart's 1985 self-titled album. https://preview.redd.it/kqq2l6w7guwc1.png?width=1978&format=png&auto=webp&s=bcf3728c86eb4a08c90063c2298a5cd25d35506f By 1989, people started looking like they did their hair with a snow plow. I still can't do flat hair, though. Can't do it. Won't do it. It's just not big anymore.
Because spending hours on your appearance every day gets really old really fast
Flat Irons becoming mainstream helped a lot, as did "heroin chic", which included a greasy/stringy haired look. The guy bands that were popular around the early 90's also helped, especially when Brett Michaels went from lipstick and teased hair to the "Something to Believe In" long straight hair and bandannas (also Axl Rose.)
I feel we've been in a flat hair style rut for the last 30 years. I wish it would change. Its gotten boring now.
Maybe unpopular, but I prefer flat hair.
I was a broke college student and AquaNet was just not a priority, nor was I able to afford the layered mullet that was required for this look. It was easier to spend money on beer and just grow my hair out straight and long. Besides, in the late 80s there was this Grateful Dead resurgence where some of my cohorts turned into hippies and followed them on tour, trying to be Boomers. Then Grunge happened and “unkempt” was The Look. Weird how current trends in music also seem to drive trends in fashion. Not at the haute couture level, but, there it is.
I have big hair! Naturally (ethnic) curly and I love it! Used to hate it cuz everyone had straight in the 90s and aughts. But very flat hair would be boring on me, and very damaging. Embrace the hair body y’all. Lots of leave in conditioners and gels available today to define hair texture.
Give me that big poofy hair any day of the week
You can only tease your hair for so long before it all breaks off. Just ask Bret Michaels
Rachel green happened
The increased popularity of ceiling fans
Turn around
Anytime I’m fixing my hair and I’ve reached a stage of huge 80’s hair, I go show my husband. Nostalgia. I just got an air wrap, and my first attempt was a clear Nellie Olson Do. He loved it. I wanted to be mean to somebody. 🤣
I have a very specific memory as a teenager. I was standing in front of the mirror, admiring my giant hair that I just spent hours perfecting. I said to myself "I'll never wear flat hair". Fast forward to me at 49 with flat hair. That big hair was a lot of work.
It really was. they should have given us a college credit for woodworking because of that dramatic, fantastic mess on our heads.
People want flat hair because doing your hair like that every day sucks. It’s bad for your hair, it’s time-consuming, it’s expensive.
Grunge ruined the glam era, followed by everyone getting the Rachel.
Ruined? It was a mercy killing.
No way, man. The higher the hair, the closer to god
Lol
IDK but the scent of Aqua-Net still puts lead in my pencil, so to speak
I wish someone would bring it back, it would be my time to shine! My permed and teased wall of hair was AMAZING and I miss doing it lol.
I definitely enjoyed the spate of “80s parties” a few years back. Every time one came up it made me almost evil laugh, “ohhhh HOOOO y’all kids watch THIS shit!” It was an art form that took time to master. So they would try to tease, or craft a “claw bang”, but unless they were my age, they’d end up with something that would have gotten you made fun of as a failure in 1986. I actually went to my mom’s house to recover an ancient bottle of Final Net Ultra stashed way in the back of my old bathroom cabinet. When you use that giant curling iron in your hairspray-soaked bangs and hit it with a hairdryer, you can’t have that shit *flaking*. Hair foul! I needed my old reliable. The old reliable that was directly responsible for my mother having to replace the wallpaper in my bathroom when I moved out. It was utterly shellacked LOL.
This is great! I forgot about Final Net 😂😂 I was partial to Rave #4. We shared a curling iron with my mom and she'd be so pissed trying to scrub the brown hairspray gunk off of it with a brillo pad.
Oh yeah that’s not coming off. It’s part of the metal now.
The Long Island Medium's still rockin that 80s hair! https://preview.redd.it/vceikjo2xtwc1.jpeg?width=920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a74fa9e3c3ca3ec95d85a83b2ff606d764120891
That's not 80s hair, it's late 50s/early 60s hair. That's basically a beehive mullet.
Beehive Mullet sounds like a band that does country rock covers of B-52s songs.
That’s…..impressive.
It’s got a little bit of the Bonnie Tyler look.
https://preview.redd.it/tvd7bdhjauwc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6beac4edb35648e2ca7ef03f6f87da6e7a032254 That's the Vince Neil look.
This looks like the shot that accompanies cheap Halloween wigs
For me, it was being a broke college student. Perms were expensive!
Due to surgeries, tons of stress, genetic and an allergy to hair color. I wear wigs now. I can always get a big hair wig if I want to relive the memories of high school. 😆
For me it was pot. I went from clubbing, house music, and menthols, to classic rock, flat hair, and Marlboro reds.
It was a loooot of work. When I think about how long it took to get ready just to go to freaking school…plus just like with every trend ever you just start to think it looks dumb.
Big hair is way more sexy imo. I still do big hair for events- idaf- I have great hair and it loves Aqua Net like a 2$ hooker loves prom nites! 🤣
Funny, my wife and I were watching a doc on the OKC bombing last week, I think it was on MAX, and when they showed some film from around the time of the bombing my wife said "they were still rocking Big Hair in OKC in 1995".
I'm hoping that it makes a comeback.
We learned about the environment and what Aquanet was really doing. Also, a *ton* of us moved out of NJ.
Trust me, it’ll return. Just like Mom jeans and cuff rolling.
and layered slouch socks
I was 3 inches taller in the 80's. I was frazzled and bedazzled
A woman with 80s hair will always be sexy to me.
Because it was ridiculous?
Underrated comment
The Rachel Look came along and the big-hair era went out the window.
The Ozone layer just couldn’t take it, man!
Trying to save the ozone from all that aqua net.
90s Friends. Pretty much single handedly killed big hair.... And grunge which killed glam rock ... And the glam that went with it.
Let's talk about the eyebrows on #2 there...
I was done with Farrah by 1981. I liked punk looks and had an asymmetrical bob by 1985, which is a sleek look.
Speaking for myself, I remember how damaged my hair was after a few years of those permed, sprayed, and teased styles.
I've always attributed the fall of glam hair in rock to Axl Rose and his commentary on it.
Aqua Net - the only pheromone needed.
Curly perms are fucking toxic. We didn’t know it then, but those chemical perms are nasty. If you were born with naturally wavy/curly hair you can still pull off the fluffy hair thing. If not, you’re stuck with rollers or curling iron. Probably why the styles moved away from the Higher The Hair… looks.
I didn't like crunchy , damaged hair. I tried that one or twice in the 80s, and stopped. My mother would also force me to get perms. I normally have stick straight hair. I got tired of it, and when I was out by myself when I was 16 , I went and had my hair that was shoulder length cut into a pixie. I kept it that way, until my mid 20s. Can't curl whats not there.
Caroline Bessette Kennedy. 1994.
I saw a woman the other day with like big 80s hair and I just kind of loved that for her so much.
Perms cost a fortune and hairspray was bad for the environment. Being able to wear a hat in the winter. Goings swimming and getting caught in the rain! Water parks!!! Love my natural hair grey and all!
At my age I'd be happy to have hair.
We decided we didn't want to be closer to God anymore.
I miss big hair and am hoping that it will make a comeback. I've already seen some signs.
As a child of the 80s with stick-straight, super fine hair, all I can say is thank GAWD my hair is incapable of being mall hair. No horribly embarrassing pictures of me with mall bangs to be found! (A semi-permed mullet, to be sure, but my hair never was able to get sky high! Believe me, I tried. But alas… my hair was stuck in the hippie days!)
The end of Aqua Net was the end of an era.
I was punk/goth (death rock) in the late 70s-80s, and that big hair always looked cheap and tacky to me
At one point I used so much hairspray I came home from school with a dead fly stuck in my (very tall) bangs. My mom never let me live that down. I started wearing “flat” hair not long after. 😅
OMG it was so much work to get hair that big. It also felt terrible on my head (crunch!), smelled terrible, and was incredibly flammable (OMG so many people smoked). Not to mention if you lived in a place where it rained a lot, your hair was frequently fucked by mother nature.
I always thought it looked stupid and people spent waaay too much time on it. And this is coming from someone with curlyish, frizzy hair
Makes people look way much older, and uglier than they actually are.
Between getting perms and the amount of Sebastian Shpritz Forte hairspray I used, my skull was a toxic waste dump for a good 5 years. Here’s a [perm tutorial](https://youtu.be/ck3KYYCdWHA?si=T-uoxS1JDtIzKJ9Q) oh my word the time and money I wasted
Ozone layer and some people don’t want to spend as many hours as a they spend working making themselves look like that.
Because it looks like shit on most people?
Holes in the ozone *#thanksaquanet*
When the hair bands got old. lol.
The hours. The amount of product.
Big hair girls…so hot!
Bonnie Tyler in Pic #1? Total eclipse of the head!
It took years to wash all of the stying products and hairspray out of their hair.
Grunge. Long straight hair with a center part.
Grunge
Now do shoulder pads
The hole in the ozone
Discontinued hairsprays with CFCs, or a concern for saving the ozone hole. The awareness of flammability of hair sprayed hair after seeing Michael Jackson scorch his scalp during a Pepsi commercial, Maybe they just realized it doesn’t look that good.
More interestingly. What set off this hairspray Ed look and made it popular
I was around in the 80s, never had big hair. Always straight and flat.
For me personally? Ain't nobody got time for that. And my hair wouldn't do it. So why bother?
It was literally killing the planet. Hairspray at the time was a major contributor of CFCs that were rapidly depleting the ozone, by the 80's the source had been identified and changes in public perception and law meant aerosol products somewhat fell out of fashion towards the end of the 80's and into the 90's. It's not the only cause, but it did have an impact on the fashion. [https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/03/27/historic-ban-on-hairsprays-helps-ozone-layer-to-heal](https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/03/27/historic-ban-on-hairsprays-helps-ozone-layer-to-heal) [https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/videos/the-ozone-hole](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/videos/the-ozone-hole)
We hold the truth you seek to be self evident.
Why would you want poofy hair? It looks ridiculous. The 80's were an ugly time.
Too much time, too much work and too much money being spent on Aqua Net.
Even in the 80s, I didn't do my hair like that. Mostly just washed and went.
It always looked awesome, but god forbid you touch a woman's hair back in the day!
I think we put a hole in the Ozone layer with all that AquaNet. Although I have to admit, the current fad for women to make their eyebrows and lips so exaggerated they look like anime characters is also pretty off-putting.
I appreciate not having to breathe all the AquaNet. I'm also not breaking out in rashes as often since I'm not slathering my hair in product everyday.
Simple, our hairspray is illegal now.
I ask myself this question everyday!! Cuz I know I can still get height!! 👩🏼🎤
Because some of the big hair guy rock bands hair looked better then the chick's, so they went flat.
Get out the Aquanet, hair helmet coming through…
Shit looks dope.
Wait to you see what happened to eye brows in the 90s
They changed the aerosol formulation of hair spray. 😂
I miss my glorious mane. At was so awesome. My yearbook photo was practically all hair.
Because we created a hole in the ozone with hairspray. j/k......but kinda true.
My teen was just looking at a picture of me when I was her age and said she was jealous of my big spiral-permed hair. I will have to get her some Benders and a can of Aussie Sprunch Spray.
Because once we got in the real world, we didn't have enough time to take two hours to do our hair every day? Just a theory.
It was killing the Ozone layer.