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Over antipasto and salmon angelhair at Miss Read’s Delicious, my girlfriend and I agree we’re both bored with our hair and discuss the merits of getting a drastic new hairstyle.

"You’d look good with an Afro," I say.

"You’d look good with purple streaks," she says, studying my face with a squint.

"Great, purple hair," I snort. "I’ll need a new face to go along with my new hair."

"New face??" she cackles.

"Well, yeah, I supposedly look sweet and innocent." I cringe. "So I’ll probably need to get a few facial piercings. You know, to go with the hair."

"But then your face won’t suit you," she wisely points out.

"Hmm. Then I might have to get a new wardrobe. And I don’t think purple hair and nose studs will really go down well with potential new clients."

"Aha, then you can get a new job!"

I chew thoughtfully on a piece of melba toast. "Hmm…that seems too much work just for a new hairstyle, doncha think?"

"It’s all about change, baby."

"Yeah, one change to spark off an entire chain reaction," I say.

And then it hits me. Why of course.

Leave it to women to convince themselves that a new hairstyle can be a new lease on life.

But then again, I’m not really vain about my hair at all. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve kept long hair for so long - because I hardly need to maintain it. People think short hair would be lower-maintenance but I say it’s a fallacy. You gotta go to the salon for regular trims and if you’re having a bad hair day, you can’t just throw it up in a ponytail (which is my way of cheating).

I’ll never have the waist-length, poker-straight, super-shiny hair that most Chinese girls seem to have these days. Why is that every time a guy sees a girl with this kind of hair from the back, he’ll go, "She’s chun!"

Frankly, hair like that’s got no personality. Or maybe I’m just jealous. Hmm…

Well, honestly, I’ve always secretly wanted to shave my head. Of course, I’d get a lot of stares in public and people will probably start assuming I’m a cancer patient. But I think it can be such an empowering thing, to be liberated from the last vestiges of vanity and the shackles of convention.

It’s true I buy way too many clothes, shoes, bags and jewellery. But that’s because I’m shallow and I like pretty things, and goddamnit, retail therapy feels GOOD!! But while I like dressing up, I’m no ardent supporter of the beauty industry. I wash my face with a RM15 cleanser or if I’m out of it, with regular Dettol soap. Never had a manicure or pedicure in my life (really!). Go out with no makeup on weekends (you have uneven skin tone and flushed cheeks, a makeup counter lady disapprovingly told me once). Will only diet if I’m marooned on a desert island with no food.

I mean, not to say I’m super-confident about my looks - sometimes I’ll look at hot chicks in, say, Zouk and I’ll feel a little (or a lot) ugly. I realize I could be better-looking if I had a 7-step skincare, went for regular hair treatments and got my lazy ass on the treadmill. But I believe beauty doesn’t come in a jar and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to scam you. And I don’t care about being the best-looking girl in the room or in Zouk because life ain’t a beauty pageant.

And no, I’m not gonna start telling you that personality is more important bla bla bla. Because we know looks count. It’s survival of the prettiest in the social jungle. But once you start running that race, you’ll never see the finish line. Now that I have a sunkissed tan, I need a bikini body. Now that I have a bikini body, I need a pair of fake boobs. Before you know it, you’re Posh Spice.

You’re not your dress size.

You’re not the lipgloss you wear.

You’re not your hair.

Or at least I sure as hell hope I’m not. Or I’ll have to seriously start rethinking my hairstyle.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 at 7:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.