Pink, curly or a mohawk mullet
What people do with their hair is up to them. Whether it’s cutting, styling or dying it green, it will grow back, and styles are always changing.
“It’s just hair. It’s not like it’s a tattoo,” said Brett Lopinsky, a sophomore in broadcast journalism. Lopinsky had a mohawk in the fall and loved it.
Even though it was a fun style, he had to put up with managing it. He has naturally curly hair, which makes it hard to straighten and stick up in the air.
“To spike my hair is really hard ’cause you have to straighten it, and then you have to hold it up while hair spraying it and flat ironing it or it won’t stay up,” he said.
“It’s quite a pain in the ass,” he added. Not only was it hard to keep up, but it was hard to live with.
“I had to slouch down in my seat to sit in cars,” he said. “It’s definitely not a convenient hairstyle.”
Like Lopinsky, to many people hair is just hair.
“I think hair will grow back and you can do what you want with it,” said Stephanie Wyatt, receptionist at The Rage Hair and Tan. “It’s a way to express yourself. If you feel like being crazy, you know, go crazy.”
Wyatt recently told a hair stylist to do whatever she wanted, so she put pink in the back of her hair.
“They put pink on the bottom half, so it’s like tinted pink. I love it,” she said.
Some people will not try extreme things with their hair for a variety of reasons such as a job, friends or parents.
“I think it’s ridiculous that you need your parents’ permission. I mean, it’s just hair. It looks ugly, but you could just cut it off,” Lopinsky said. But what he considers crazy is a lot different than what other people might, and that comes from his parents.
“When I was a little kid my parents dyed my hair blue to be funny,” he said. “They definitely encourage me. So, I never really thought of it as crazy.”
Wyatt said for a job interview people can cover the extreme colors up with a hat or a headband for girls. But if the future employer doesn’t like it, the applicant can change it or they can find another job.
As opposed to bright blues and greens, in the winter months, hair colors are typically darker but get blonder in the spring and summer.
Another trend is high- and low-lighting, putting a dark color underneath and a light color on top.
“The reds are popular for a lowlight or for a highlight,” said Roz Wood, an instructor at the New Horizons Beauty College. “Reds are always applicable to people, especially with warm skin tones.”
As for hairstyles, they range from curly to straight to mohawk mullets.
“Straight hair, wavy hair – pretty much anything goes right now, I think,” said cosmetologist Heidi Atkinson. “Most people like straight hair, as flat iron as you can get,” she said.
Wood said the main thing to remember for people using Chi irons or thermal irons of any kind, especially the ceramic irons, is that they’re extremely high temperature and people do have to use a thermal protector.
A thermal protector is a leave-on or spray-on protector that people spray on like a conditioner. It keeps the hair from burning up during the ironing process.
“To keep it smooth and sleek looking, you need to use a thermal spray,” Wood said.
Along with layers and straight locks, bangs are making a comeback in the hair world.
“Bangs are like the new trend,” Wyatt said. “Everybody wants to get bangs back.”
In middle school she said everyone wanted to get rid of bangs and now everyone wants big swoopy bangs that cover the eye, she added.
-ranaebang@cc.usu.edu