julie brunzell hair

I have admired/envied great hair as long as I can remember.  If you have nice hair, I will compliment you.  I can’t help it.  My hair envy began with my very first ever friend Jackie Heit.  We were friends from probably 4 yrs of age.  She wore her hair long, because her father liked it that way, and it was always in braids.  Two thick braids of golden brown ending in these really cool blond curls at the ends.  Fascinating!  I so wanted those braids, even resorting to the purchase of a hat with braids attached, sporting a comb on the back and the slogan “Kookie, lend me your comb”.  (Debbie Clark and I had those hats one summer.)   But I had straight brown hair and my mother was hard-pressed to do anything interesting with it, so i wore it shoulder length.

Then there was Patty Work, of the naturally curly hair and by the age of 7 when we met, this is the type of hair I wanted.  So began the perms every Labor Day weekend for me, this my mother was willing to do.    Those perms lasted FOREVER and the bonus was some serious bonding time with my mother for me, and some peace and quiet for my mother while we waited the hour for the perm solution to process.  That ammonia smell still takes me back.  At about 6th grade, perms were dorky so I called a halt to the torture.  Not sure who was the most relieved.

I continued with my hair covetousness on into my adulthood and I would say I had some serious hair hang ups;  cut it, don’t cut it, color it, “frost” it, perm it, straighten it, hot roller it, soup can it.  Try as I might, I wasn’t satisfied with the hair I had.  Thanks to the hippie movement, for a time I was able to free myself from all that chemical mess and celebrate my locks. I let it grow.  To my waist.   It finally stopped by itself.  I have colored my hair from time to time since the 70s, believing the hype about the beauty that was mine for 7.99 (if I did the color at home) but I just am too cheap/lazy/curious to keep it up.  By the time I was fifty, I truly did want to see how it would look if I just let it go grey, plus once you start covering the grey, transitioning out is just too much of a shock.

This is titled Julie Brunzell Hair for a reason and I apologize for the digression.  Julie Brunzell was a young lady in our church with a lovely head of hair, thick, long, blond shot through with golds and silvers, yellows and whites.  My friend Judy and I got to calling great hair “Julie Brunzell Hair” and btw Judy herself  has Julie Brunzell Hair.  Julie is now a mom of three lovely children, each of whom has a stellar head of hair thanks also in part to their dad.  In looking back, I would say Jackie Heit had, maybe still does have, Julie Brunzell Hair.  Patty Work as well, and, I think, now I do, too.  Call it Julie Brunzell Hair Grey.O.