Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Friends, romans and countrymen! Hair ye, Hair ye.

Have you ever looked at the shampoo ads ? The hair shown there is fake. It's made of acrylic or one of those polymers (yeah- polymers were big coupla decades ago. Everyone thought of them as wonder material. Until they were not only wondrous but were indomitable and immortal. They take forever and forever to degrade.) But anyway, those gals and nowadays metrosexual guys (I'm still warming up to the idea that guys care about their hair and their gel and their fairness. There goes that fair beautiful guy is NOT a compliment.) in advertisements have the most amazing ads. They toss their heads and the hair sways as though it has never heard of the concept of friction which is the thing that generally brings things to rest. No- the ad gal's hair will sway and sway and sway until you're reeling and finally everything's dark. Oh! The darkness is not because you're feeling faint. It's because the whole TV screen is now full of black hair.

But here's the thing about shampoos. There is no all purpose shampoos. Remember there used to be a dilemma about whether to choose ugly white calcium toothpastes or gels- one of which is good for teeth and the other is good for fresh breath, and how they finally decided to combine both of them on the same toothpaste ? Apparently, such common-sense wisdom has simply deserted the shampoo makers. I've been to the market. One will say silky hair. The other will say smooth hair. Another will say soft hair. Yet another will say shiny hair. Who in the world is content with just one kind of hair ? Who doesn't want smooth and silky and shiny and soft hair ? And the dandruff shampoos will promise nothing except the removal of dandruff in 4-6 weeks until which we're going to have to be content with drab dry brittle hair, the very thing that we go use shampoos for.

I watched a movie recently- "Friends with money". I didn't quite understand the point of the movie. I mainly watched it for Jennifer Aniston, who, I think is just going to live the rest of her life riding off her FRIENDS fame. I've never been impressed with her in any movie. Regardless, there's another character in the movie that simply stops washing her hair. She's going through a mid-life crisis you see ? At one point she says something like" Remember how many shampoos I used to buy? I always thought if I find the right one, life would be perfect. But I never found the right one" I understand that sentiment- completely. Everytime I try a new shampoo, I think, maybe this is the one. And it never ever is. I'm not going to stop washing my hair because of that, because, I've never yet used a shampoo that made my hair worse than before I washed my hair. But yes, I generally understand the "why even be bothered".

But seriously, what is it with not making shampoos that don't do everything. If they're just finding a market in the discontent of their clients, then I suggest that all clients simply stop washing their hair until and unless the shampoo companies give us a better deal than the one they've chosen to give us. They want money. We want perfect hair. It doesn't get more straight-forward than that. My country got its independence by following civil disobedience. This cannot be half as difficult. Or if we don't like the fact that our hair will stink if we stop washing it, perhaps we should all just shave it off. Ya. Keep shaving it until the shampoo companies react. I don't know which work. The play-by-play hasn't been worked out in my head yet. But I think it's a superbly brilliant idea.

What the hell. Good hair is my BIRTHRIGHT.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said.