How big is your hair?

By Dilaila Mohd Yunus

When I was a kid, my mother and her sisters have their own tradition for celebrating Hari Raya (Eid).

They have this ritual that amused us kids no end, while the menfolk would be rolling their eyes like some character in a horror movie.

See, Hari Raya also means new hair. This means they would ‘karan rambut’ – a phrase that would still make me burst into childish giggles to this very day.

(To the uninitiated, ‘karan rambut’ which is derived from the word ‘current’ means having your hair permed.)

Anyway, every year, a Nyonya who operates a mobile Salon Kerinting Rambut (another phrase that still makes me giggle – Ed Note “Hair Salon” in English) would make her way to my grandmother’s house with her equipment of torture.

And after a few hours, my mother and aunties would be the butt of jokes amongst us kids as they go around with their big hair.

You would have thought the big hair craze would have gone out of the window with the advent of the rebonding technique.

Unfortunately, no.

Society ladies or members of the First Wives Club of prominent businessmen and politicians are still at it.

Hair so big they look like helmets, so stiff even the Tsunami wouldn’t blow it out of proportion.

Have they not heard of the effect of hair spray on the ozone layer?

Aerosol hair sprays are normally made up of chemical cocktails of solvents, glues, polymers and propellants, many of which are toxic.

Even if CFC – the very thing that contributes to the thinning of the ozone layer – has been banned in most cases, using an aerosol hair spray still impacts the environment in a big way.

Most hair spray come in either cans or plastic bottles. The plastics will break down into toxic chemicals that poison the earth and groundwater. Besides, most plastics are made from crude oil, an industry that have harmed our planet plenty.

Even if it doesn’t harm the planet, hair spray can fry your brains.

That probably explains why these ladies still go around with helmet hairs.

The writer is an international award-winning KL-based creative consultant with more than a decade’s experience in some of Malaysia’s most prominent advertising agencies and now runs In Other Words.