A good hair day is much like the coming of a comet: it doesn’t happen that often, but when it does, It’s a joy to behold. It also means that It’s a day when you won’t see that passive-aggressive girlfriend who spins like a weather vane, your ex-boyfriend, or anyone who can advance your career or father your children. Those meetings always happen when you haven’t shampooed for three days, your roots are waaaay overdue for a touch-up, and there’s no safe place to duck out of sight. On a good hair day, count on your precious coif being seen by a panhandler, a blind man, and a newborn.

But don’t despair. If you look really, really hard, there may be a women’s magazine to come to your aid. Or perhaps a tabloid movie star rag that pronounces whom you should be imitating this week. If It’s not a wear-a-bag-over-your-head day, you could venture down the health and beauty aisle at the drugstore. The answer to your prayers must be somewhere along the 50 lineal feet of products. Maybe your stylist can see you on an emergency basis for an expert opinion, some gentle hand-holding, and a $200 fix.

It’s craziness that most of us have bought hook, line, and sinker. And that obvious handful of women who haven’t just end up going over to the dark side when they appear on a reality makeover show. So we perm or straighten, cut off or grow out, colour or go au naturel?all in the name of image, beauty, or fitting in.

It goes without saying that we always want what Mother Nature has denied us. can’t you still smell the fumes emanating from the Toni home perms of the 1950s, 1960s and beyond? Today, that odoriferous memory has been replaced with the singed smell of hair being straightened. Even Dr. Oz warned against overdoing the use of the flatiron because it cooks the protein in the hair. I don’t see a whack of straighteners on Kijiji, so I guess that bit of science will be ignored too in the name of beauty.

We ignore our age, hair texture, face shape, and styling prowess at our peril as we march boldly into the salon, clutching a photo in our moist palm and asking, ?Can we do this??

That’s what happened in November 2009, when I had my last real haircut. I decided to grow it out to save the hairdresser’s fee, to get a different look, to shake things up a bit. Of course, I haven’t saved any money because it still needs to be shaped and trimmed. But it is different than the lifetime of short hair I’ve always had, and some days I’m not sure I did the right thing.

With resistant grey, a funny hairline, medium-weight hair, glasses, and one or possibly two wrinkles, it is a challenge to find the right look for this face, body, and lifestyle. Heaven help us all the day I decide to let the grey take over, from where I sit.