I would have ruled this world too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
ODE TO CLAIROL

brendalove@gmail.com


Clairol needs to make me some kind of spokesperson, kind of like that guy Jared that eats at Subway all the time. For I have a Clairol story to tell that is probably like no other.

My grandmother died when I was 16, in 1981. When we were going through her things to keep or get rid of, we came upon a set of Clairol hot rollers. Apparently it was one of those Christmas gifts like you give your grandparents, you think you're bringing them into the New Age, and they just say "thank you" and stuff it into a corner somewhere. Obviously these hot rollers had been around for awhile but they had never been opened. I decided I wanted them...and thus began my hot roller career. I loved them. They were sturdy (made in Denmark) and they had these hard prickly things all over them...you could really dig your roller in your hair like a hair brush, GRAB the hair and roll it up tight.

Here's one of my hot rollers now, having a pleasant visit with the Motrin bottle.

So I used that set of hot curlers until about 4 years ago, when the base unit finally gave up the ghost. That's 20 years of using the same hair curlers. 20 YEARS! I was in mourning. I didn't know what I was going to do, it was like an old friend had died. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away, I gave them a decent burial in the linen closet.

Finally I set out to buy myself some Modern Hair Curlers. And was instantly confronted with something like this:

Do you know anyone that only needs 5 hair curlers? My old set had 24, count 'em, 24 hair curlers. Sheesh. Finally I found a set of Vidal Sassoon curlers that had enough in there. I brought it home, plugged it in and was instantly confronted with a new problem.


All the curlers had some kind of velvet material wrapped around them. Now how was I supposed to get my hair wrapped around a curler with velvet on it? How come they didn't have the little prickly things anymore? Well, I couldn't do it. Every time I tried my hair would just pop loose. My hair is thick and heavy and I needed prickly things!

So what did I do? I went back in the closet, dragged out my trusty Clairol curlers and put them on the Vidal Sassoon base. And...it worked! I could still use my beloved curlers!

So here we are heading into 24 years of using the same hair curlers...on top of however old they were to begin with. I sing the praises of Clairol to whoever will listen. I think I wrote them a letter once hoping to get some free coupons or something...but they never wrote me back. No matter. I'm truly hoping I'll never have to buy another set of hair curlers ever again, and they can just bury me with them one day. There's no way I'm going to heaven without my hair curlers!