My fringe has a tendancy to curl out at the sides and it looks really stupid and nothing I do can get it to look at least a little bit normal so if anyone can please please help me I would be soooo grateful because its really getting on my nerves

-- Anonymous, March 06, 2000

Answers

By fringe, do you mean bangs? You could try shaving your head, or using gel to grease them down, or you could let them grow out. You could use barrettes, or bobby pins, or you could get a pet parakeet & let it poop all over your bangs & then everyone would think you were making a really complex artistic statement. You could try dying them orange or green & weaving little roadside weeds into them. You could hang dead minnows off your bangs, and then I'm sure no one would notice how they curl out at the sides. Let me know what you decide!

-- Anonymous, March 06, 2000

When I finally figured out why Lauren thought that the Xeney forum would be the best place to ask coiffure questions, I nearly broke a tooth laughing. Actually, at first I thought she meant the fringe on a rug, and I thought that if any fringe experts came forward I would ask them how to stop my foster rabbit from nibbling off the edges of my Turkish carpet, one of the two nice things I now own. So far my solution has been to roll up said carpet and store it in a locked room. The other nice thing I own is my grandfather's antique cherrywood card table, which now has a semi-conspicuous BITE out of one leg.

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-- Anonymous, March 06, 2000

This place is as good as any! Also why do Americans say bangs? - the British word 'fringe' kinda makes sense but bangs? - does any one know where the word comes from??

As for advice: how about using hot tongs - they will usually set a style pretty well ; )

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

Kim:

The bunnies, they never stop chewing on the rug fringe. Or wood. My husband is a House Rabbit Society guy, and he gives our bunnies odds and ends of wood...2x2x4 sized, for them to chew on - and he leaves them around their cage area, so they don't stray far. Oh - and carboard boxes, with strategic holes cut in the sides, like a play house. That slowed down the rug eating, but did not stop it.

Good luck!

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

Hmmmm... hair questions.

I have very short hair, sort of boyishly cut and I like it a lot but I've been thinking of growing it out. I have periodically grown it out and then lopped it off but there this particular stage of growing out between the middle of my ear and my chin where my hair just starts flipping out at all angles.

Any suggestions for cuts that would minimize this? Actually, any suggestion for in between cuts would be great. I'd like to skip the whole helmet head thing.

- slack

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

Merriam-Webster (www.m-w.com -- I forgot to list that in my post in the "favorite websites" thread) says that "bangs" is probably short for "bangtail", which means "short tail". Why Americans would name something that hangs in front of your face after something that hangs off the back of a horse's ass is a mystery. Once again the Brits have outclassed us.

Thanks for the chewing advice, Kristin. I did try giving Cassidy [the rabbit] some unfinished pine boards I found in the garage, but she is apparently uninterested in chewing any wood that has not been lathed into furniture, or in fact any object that is not used for interior decorating, except for phone books. However, I have found that that Nature's Miracle "Best Behavior" spray does live up to its name. No fresh gnaw marks have appeared on anything treated with the stuff.

I don't know how anyone can keep a rabbit in a hutch, after having lived with Cassidy as a house rabbit. I'm a bit sorry to be keeping her because now I have a new form of animal cruelty to be righteously angry about: backyard hutch rabbits. Cassidy is intelligent, social, playful, and a better litterbox user than a lot of cats I know. And she hates to be shut in a single room, much less a cage. On two occasions I've left her in a large bathroom overnight, and even with plenty of toys at her disposal she just trashed the place, overturning her dishes, pissing in the corners, shredding towels, and gorging on an entire basket of timothy hay. She was like Axl Rose on a coke binge in a swank hotel. Rabbits are NOT meant to be confined.

And yes, I named her Cassidy because she hops along. Sigh.

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-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

to Slack: I don't know of any in-between cuts that work well except for "the bob". When I graduated college, I had a bob cut to my jawline, and it was cute. Now my hair is really long. I had no real decisive reasons for the growth except for I was incredibly poor after college and hair cuts at salons were a luxury. I had friends, who owned a pair of hair-cutting scissors and some - I don't know what - knowledge of hair-cutting procedures trim the ends every couple of months. I neither could afford a real hair cut nor trusted them beyond a couple inches. Hence, I now have long, straight, amazingly-hip hair. Only once, since the 80s, I am in style.

My fringe is borderline. It can go either way. Long or short. Curled or not. It's straight. It doesn't flip out. It just lays there.

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2000

At my most recent lopping off of huge amounts of hair, I talked to my hair dresser about maximizing my natural curl.

I didn't want a perm and I didn't want layers, just a cut that let my hair bounce up again, since growing it down to my waist tends to have a flattening effect.

She said that a blunt cut, done straight across, would lead to flat or flipping hair. Instead she cut on the angle, alternately on each strand of hair. And lo and behold, it worked.

My hair either dries almost flat if I tie it up after washing it, or it sproings up into masses of loose curls if I just let it dry free. I don't use anything more complicated than shampoo on my hair either -- I've never willingly bought hairspray, gel, mousse or anything else of that nature -- so getting a good manageable cut has always been important to me.

I'd say -- talk to your hair dresser, she/he may have some tricks when cutting to minimize the flip, something as simple as the angle at which the ends are trimmed could make a difference.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

I don't know about flippy bangs, but all my hair problems have been fixed with a 2-parts-water-to-1-part Infusium 23 treatment.
Then again, my 'bangs' can almost be tucked into my jeans pockets, so I'm really the wrong person to give good advice...

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000

Buy one of those high temperature curling irons-- they're gold instead of silver. You can get one at a beauty supply store. Use that sucker and your hair will stay put all the live-long day.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2000