Furthermore, many of us with long hair are not trying to conform to some”‘golden goddess’ image that american society portrays” – I’m not even American! Nor are we wearing it long because it’s what men like. Yes, my boyfriend likes my hair long, but I’d been growing it for myself for over a year before I met him, and I know he would be fully supportive of me if I truly wanted to cut it, which I don’t. I don’t think short hair is ‘liberating’ in the slightest. You might, and I’m glad you like it the way it is, but I liked my hair short for a couple weeks before deciding to grow it, and then I got frustrated with it. It didn’t suit my face, it was irritating to deal with because I couldn’t just throw it all in a bun and forget about it so instead I got hairs in my face, &c. No, for me, at least, long hair is the way to go.

To answer the most commonly-asked question, “Are you serious!?” – NO! It is just a blog post. While by no means do I believe that having shorter hair will make a person and their lifestyle more sustainable, it is a topic worth thinking about. Having short or long hair isn’t going to solve the global warming problem; choosing one over the other won’t either. Still, many women I know personally and meet from day-to-day feel very self-conscious if they don’t have the long, luxurious hair they see in the magazines. Never be afraid to be different – whether your hair is short, long, or anything in between!

“How about cutting your damn hair!”

My hair is part of who I am. It’s taken me many years to grow this long, and it’s not an accident. I love feeling it on my bare skin. I love playing with it, and learning new ways to wear it. I love the pretty hair accesories and ‘toys’ I can use to make it different and it goes with all my clothes -the one thing in my wardrobe I can wear to any event, any party, any gathering. I can wear it up, put it down, tie it back, braid it, twist it, curl it, or -if I ever want to- cut it off. I can probably find 500 hairstyles on the ‘net to use with my almost hip-length hair. Try that with a 2″ buzz.

Think of all the resources that go into maintaining long hair: water, products with questionable ingredients, electricity (for hair appliances and frequent towel laundering), money, and most importantly – time.

Hmmm…. Water. We’re out in the desert, so water is always a consideration. We’re nice clean people, so we use it often, but judiciously. More than once I’ve saved the water from one use to re-use it on my trees or washed the dog with rainwater. I take quick showers, and only wash my hair once a week. I believe I used a lot more water when I washed my hair everyday, as I used full-strength shampoos and such, and thought I had to rinse it ’till I ’squeeked’. Electricity -I don’t use any for my hair. I don’t use a blow dryer, and haven’t for over ten years. I don’t use a curling iron. I don’t use a flat iron, or hot rollers. I wash my hair, wrap it one towel, and when it’s no longer dripping I sit on my front porch in the sunshine ’till it’s dry. Towel laundering…I use one towel per shower, and one towel weekly for my hair. My shorter-haired family members each use two -one for hair, one for body. I win. Money…I had one hair trim in August for $20.00, including tip. I use bargain-bin shampoo, diluted with water. I use the low budget conditioners, and a lot of them. Time…sorry, but no. I spend much less time working on my hair. Although, to be true, I do spend more time overall, because I spend so much of it enjoying my hair. But…what better way to spend my spare time than doing I something I enjoy?

You could save on all of these things by simply cutting your hair shorter. Most men are known for having short hair, so it is the women of the world who need to wake up and chop it off. Remember the 1950s? Some of the most popular women of that era had hair above their shoulders. Sophistication, authority, beauty – short hair says it all.

Yes; most men are known for having short hair. They’re also known for their power toys and power tools, spending huge amounts of money, electricity and other resources on their hobbies (woodworking, anyone? fishing? hunting? NASCAR? barhopping? snowmobiling?) that cost just as much in time and effort as anything us womenfolks do.

The 1950s are over. They are not coming back. Some of the most popular women did have short hair, but every woman was expected to look like an hourglass, too. They were highly materialistic, and were expected to keep spotless houses filled with the latest in new gadgets -radios, televisions, telephones, nylon stockings, and luxury cars were must-haves. Barbie (with shoulder length hair) hit the scene and told every young girl that if she didn’t grow to be a 44d she had no right calling herself a ‘woman’. Racism was high, and poverty was everywhere. I don’t see many reasons to hold up the hair styles of that decade as shiny examples of green thinking.

Sophistication, authority and beauty are universal ideas that have been around since long before hair salons. Pharoahs and chieftains kept their hair LONG for the same reasons. Beauty remains with the beholder, and there is no one size (or lenth) that fits all. No matter how beautiful you are, someone will think his wife is prettier, and someone somewhere will consider their own backside to be better.

Long hair is often a personified characteristic of youth. A recent study from University of Pecs in Hungary proves that long-time tradition is changing. “Women with longer hair seem healthy, intelligent, and mature, while women with short hair are seen as more youthful, honest, caring, and emotional,”says Liz Somes in Psychology Today’s January/February 2008 issue.

We’re seen as healthy, intelligent and mature? Well, it’s about time. Most of us are healthy, and work hard to stay that way. It’s only taken a few hundred centuries for us women to convince men that we’re capable of rational thought, too, and now you want to give that back??? Maturity and youth are both inner states -maturity doesn’t mean ‘old’ and it doesn’t mean ‘washed up’. It means capable of discerning what is and is not important, the ability to make a commitment, to finish a job correctly and on time, to make those rational decisions that often only really make sense to those who’ve experienced the consequences of failure to make them. Honesty, caring, and emotional are not hair-related, either. They’re related to integrity and the ability to step outside one’s self-absorbed world to see the bigger picture and react to it in appropriate ways. Speaking up when hurt may be seen as “emotional” but holding it in and silently suffering to keep some “good girl” image isn’t exactly healthy…. The simple fact is, no one can judge a person’s inner resources by the length of their hair, and people need to stop trying.

From a logical perspective, it is easy to see why short hair equals youth. Long hair takes years to grow. Short hair is worn by babies worldwide. Ba-da bing, ba-da boom. Just about every woman has had one of those nightmare haircuts that you just can’t fix, but fear to go short. Long hair used to be seen as what makes a woman feminine. Well times have changed!

This week. Next week, it will change back the other way. But for the record, men see me as very feminine. I climb into bed wearing nothing but my hair, and my husband of-more-years-that-I can-count-on-both-hands loses his mind. I make men nervous by just standing around. My hair isn’t just long, it’s beautiful, and -get this- most of them guess my age to be less than half what I really am! I’ve been told over and over that I look like a “hot young woman” by people who are stunned when I tell them my true age. I don’t think my hair makes me look old at all. It helps make me look HOT, and that’s something I refuse to give up, even to save the environment.

After having shoulder-length or longer hair for over 10 years, I buzzed it all off to one-inch long in December 2007. Why? It was time for a change.While it took me weeks to get used to my new look, I instantly found many benefits to having short hair: saving water, using less shampoo and conditioner, no need for styling products or tools – all of this lead to saving time, money, and vital planetary resources. In addition, I also found myself gaining confidence at a rapid speed. No longer was I hiding behind my hair or constantly worrying about how it looks (curly haired folks know what I mean).

Well, I’m glad that works for you. But don’t try to blanket the rest of us with your experience. I don’t hide behind my hair -I pull it clear back off my face. I don’t have to chop it off when it’s time for a change -a new braid or a new barrette has the same uplifting and mood-enhancing abilities for me. But everyone is different, so if your short hair works better for you, then I’m very happy for you. Now, why don’t you be try to be happy for those of us who love our long hair?

Most people don’t like to be told what to do. I’m bucking the system. Cut your hair! How short? Above shoulder length. Don’t let fear or vanity stop you. There is an attractive short hair cut for every face.

Uhm…fear for the planet is your whole point here, isn’t it? Fear of what all those products and electricity will do is stopping you from enjoying long hair…. Something a bit wrong with that picture, don’t you think? Vanity? We all have it. You want to see some folks without vanity, turn off the computer and go check out a homeless shelter or an alley in a big city. You’ll find bag ladies and prostitutes and destitutes…they lost their pride, and vanity is a luxury that comes with pride. Please don’t tell me I’d be doing the planet a favor by giving up my vanity. It’s part of what makes the human experience livable.

There is indeed a short haircut for every face. And I believe every face is flattered by -and deserves- a long, lucious, gorgeous mane if it wants one, too.

Happy holidays to you.

I’ve gone both routes, long hair and short hair. I grew my hair long and wore it that way a few years, then went in for a cut and style. Wore my hair short and styled a couple more years and then grew it back out. Long hair is far easier and less demanding than short. I would never go back. I can’t stand to waste that much time, energy and money on my hair.

Short hair required me to wash daily and use heat styling devices such as blow dryers and heated irons. It required me to visit the salon every 6 weeks for a trim to keep up my style. I had to use styling products and hairsprays. I also had to wash and condition it daily. Fixing my hair in the morning took me a minimum of 45 minutes, between the required shampoo and blow-dry and the styling. It also required various touch-ups throughout the day to keep it looking nice.

Contrast that to long hair. I go to the salon twice a year for a trim. The rest of the time, I keep the ends neat by occasionally inspecting and self-trimming any splits and trimming the very ends once in awhile to keep them nice. I wash only every third day, so it uses less time, products and water. It only takes a minute to take a quick shower to wash the rest of me and freshen up, which is much less than if I had to shampoo and condition also. Then I let my hair air dry which requires no energy and allows me to go on about my day w/o spending all that time blow-drying (and heat styling is very damaging to the hair also, so I spare my hair this assault). Once my hair dries enough to be just damp, then I quickly twist it up into a pretty updo and secure it with a stylish hair accessory. It takes only a minute to fix and the updo will stay fresh and neat and attractive all day w/o further maintenance. If I prefer, I can wear my hair down too, which only requires an occasional run-through with a wide-toothed comb to keep neat. I get to skip heat-styling devices, styling gels and sprays and frequent touch-ups.

I’d say long is the way to go if you’re serious about cutting back on the time and energy and resources you put into your hair.

Besides, I get about ten times as many compliments on my hair worn long than I ever did with any of my shorter styles, even the most updated, fashionable ones which I paid big bucks to have done at expensive salons. Why spend a few hundred dollars and many hours every month on your hair when you can look better for much less? Yesterday alone, I received four compliments on my hair from complete strangers and one from a family member I hadn’t seen in awhile. That NEVER happened with shorter styled hair, no matter how great I thought it looked. The truth is that most of the public seems to find long hair more attractive, despite articles like this one and makeover shows that push shorter dos.

So you can keep writing this stuff and the makeover shows can keep cutting off women’s long locks and coloring and heat-styling and selling them expensive and time-consuming products. I’ll keep my hair long, thanks. Why on earth would I want to trade the almost effortless upkeep and regular positive feedback for that???

On the other hand shorthair normally needs frequent washing, heatstyling and product just to make it look good.

Firstly, I had hair in the realm of shoulder-length for years, and it’s now to the midde of my back, and it’s becoming less effort all the time. I wash it every three to four days, where when it was short I washed it at least every other day, and I don’t use any more shampoo, as I only shampoo the scalp, or conditioner, as I only use it on the ends, and use some diluted vinegar to make the hair easier to detangle (the vinegar makes the cuticle close, therefore making it smooth and easier to detangle).

Shorter hair took much longer and more resources to style because if I wanted it up, whereas now I can use a single stick that lasts for years, then I used an elastic (and these wear out in a few months) and pins (which are also prone to breaking and being chucked). Likewise, to wear it down I needed to spend time making sure I liked the way it looked, and did on occasion use styling products, whereas long I just comb and it’s ready to go.

Secondly, many women will colour, blow-dry, straighten, etc. their hair, regardless of length (this doesn’t apply if you have very short hair, like you do, but with a bob or even a pixie there may be colouring or other styling products in use, and likewise with long hair it happens). It would have been useful, then, to provide suggestions for how people, without changing the length of their hair, could become more environmentally friendly in their haircare routine, for instance not using chemical colours, minimising blow-drying, washing less frequently, etc.

You, in writing this article, appear to make the assumption that long-haired women treat their hair in the same way that short-haired women do, but because there’s more hair they require more products and time. This is not always the case, for long hair has gravity on its side for styling when worn down, and can be worn in many beautiful updos otherwise, and therefore styling products and heat styling are less common the longer one’s hair gets. I would be very happy to see a similar article expounding upon the ecological advantages to having longer hair.

Simply saying you will save resources by having short hair is wrong.

Why? Because the amount of resources you use is is more likely a reflection on what exactly you do with your hair. Regardless of how long or short it is, if you style your hair using blow driers, styling products, use bleach or colour on your hair, you will use more than those who do not. On another note, keeping your hair short will require more frequent trimmings; assuming one goes to a hairdresser to get this done, this become expensive, although if you do it yourself, free.

Regarding women’s hair in the 1950s, yes they were above the shoulders, but it took time to style their hair that way, and like I said in my previous paragraph, styling will require more resources.

Now, I’ll make a final point about the look of having long or short hair. Having the hair you want is a personal choice and for you to suggest that we should cut it because “the times are changing” is not your call to make. It’s like reading a magazine and doing what it says because it’s in style or for whatever reason (a common example is women over 30 are supposed to cut their hair).

If women feel pretty with long hair, then what’s the harm in that?

Anyway, I don’t let men tell me how to have my hair and I won’t let you tell me how to have my hair. I’m growing it long and strong!

To Melissa:

“The only thing I find disappointing though is some of the comments. It’s obvious that alot of women are hanging onto their hair length for men. How about we start caring about ourselves as much as we care about the environment ”

- I’ve only noticed one comment here that suggests this (and even then, not terribly strongly). Do you feel that it’s even possible for a woman to have her hair the way she wants because she likes it that way and for no one else? You don’t know everyone, and you don’t know why they have their hair the way they do (although you seem to think you do).

“Also, the “mom hair” thing… It’s really sad to constantly hear women stereotyping each other, especially moms. Us women and moms should support each other, not perpetuate stereotypes ”

- It’s not about being a mom, it’s about having an ugly haircut (this is a personal preference, I personally think it’s ugly)

I hope my thoughts are clear, thank you.

To address another comment, the only person that I will ever grow and keep my hair is for myself. If a man is that superficial that he only wants me for my hairstyle, he can go jump.
I will also suggest that if you are thinking of donating your hair for Locks of Love, that you do your research and find out exactly what could happen to your hair donation, it might not even make it into a wig.

Long hair can be a good thing, for some. Short hair can be good, for some.

If you use and consume and have a huge carbon footprint with long hair, then you will most likely have a huge carbon foot print as a short hair. Simple.

I used way too much product to keep my short hair “tamed” but with long hair it can be controlled without products. I air dry. I don’t do it for a man. I like the way I look. Me not someone else. I am a single, not looking widow. I please myself, not others. I am green, so is my hair care as a long hair I spend less time on my hair and less money than I ever did as a short haired person…

Remember, there are few universal truths, by recognizing that truth, you will become a more effective person.

The only thing I find disappointing though is some of the comments. It’s obvious that alot of women are hanging onto their hair length for men. How about we start caring about ourselves as much as we care about the environment Also, the “mom hair” thing… It’s really sad to constantly hear women stereotyping each other, especially moms. Us women and moms should support each other, not perpetuate stereotypes

When I have short hair, I have to wash it more frequently and blow-dry it every single time afterwards. I have to use mousse and gel and hair-spray just to make it look like it’s seen a hairbrush in the last month. Short hair is so maintenance-intensive for me, that’s why I keep my hair long.