Terrible 1980s Hairstyles – Wash, Rinse and Never Repeat!
Terrible 1980s hairstyles are a continuing source of humour for all subsequent generations. At the time, we seriously thought we looked the business. Those of us who lived and survived the ’80s really thought that fashion couldn’t get any better as we donned our double-breasted suits with shoulder pads, painted our nails, put on our eyeliner and lipstick, slipped on our white socks and loafers, and slapped a half jar of hair gel and a can of hairspray onto our hair. And that was all genders.
1980s Hairstyles – The Land That Style Forgot
The Mushroom Cloud ready to explode
They spent hours preparing this hair!
It doesn’t matter who you were, male or female, black or white – hair was big. Huge. Enormous. 1980s hairstyles were back-combed, curled, crimped, pummelled, stretched to within an inch of its life. It was teased, rolled, permed, blow-dried, highlighted, lowlighted, ponytailed, cornrowed, fringed, de-fringed and generally cocked up. And we loved it. We looked amazing.
No idea what was going on in her head here.
The Back-combed Mullet – she thought it worked.
Glamourous 1980s Hair
The ’80s were a time of glamour, albeit a strange misguided, distorted perception of glamour. With post-punk and new romantic music moving from the underground to the mainstream the likes of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Adam and the Ants and Toyah made dressing up fun. This filtered to the 1980s hairstyles enthusiastically embraced by the metal bands and poodle rockers. Long forgotten bands like Poison, Cinderella and Bon Jovi, captivated audiences across the US. Pop stars like Cyndi Lauper and Madonna and TV shows such as Dallas and Dynasty drove everyone to adopt immense hair and to destroy the ozone layer with the CFC heavy hairsprays of the day.
Look at my hair, it’s enormous!
Nope
When Hair Products Attack
This over-enthusiasm for hair product led to our glorious tresses feeling sticky and stiff, constantly needing more product day and night to maintain its stature. Ironically, this added more weight and greater gravitational pull, until we emerged from the local club at 2am, sweaty and dishevelled into the rain, which flattened our hair more and ran rivers of stinging hair gel into our eyes.
I’m saying nothing…
The Eraserhead
Just Give Up…
Luckily the internet is a treasure trove of terrible photos of bad hair, especially from US High School Yearbooks and mid-western portrait studios which seemed to specialise in this particular brand of horror show. Obviously, MHD feels obliged to draw your attention to these howlers and to learn from the mistakes of history.
What the?
The Bon Jovi family
Don’t give your clients 1980s hairstyles under any circumstances! Learn how to cut and style hair properly on MHD!
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