What were 80s hairstyles like?
Hair styles of the 80s are the most various and amusing features from this decade. In early 80s, the New Romantic fashion styles started the decade with enthusiastic hair experimentation. For a time there appeared to be a contest to discover who was able to construct the highest hair, possess the most unusual angles, or a favorite of this site - how much plastic, metal and mousse you were able to stuff into your hair and still hold your head upright. In this premier part of on ongoing series, 80sfashionguide.com will look at big hair.
Big hair isn’t unique to the 80s - the 60s had the beehive and the 70s possessed the afro. What set the 80s hair styles apart was their variety. The beginning of the decade saw the extravagance of strange hair colors and cuts. By 1984 the trends had settled down and centered on one simple concept - volume. More hair was hotter. Bananarama had a few of finest illustrations of 80s hair - pretty much reflecting the fashions of the decade (but maybe not the best fashions) from cuts styles to volume and flicks. The ‘Hair Bands’ of the 1980s applied this style which was most intense around 1987-88. Your hair could go up, out and down. It could appear as though you put your noggin in a cotton candy machine - so long as it wasn’t straight - this was the supreme sin in the early 80s (frequently met with the unfavorable judgment ’she needs to do something with that hair’).
By 87-88, the 70s began to come back and it was all of a sudden ok to possess a retro look. You could even have short hair as long as it was bleached, dyed a brilliant color or spiked with hair mousse).
A lot of accessories were available to help with this process - you could tease your hair and bind it up with hair gel. Some hair gel even contained glitter or additional sparkle bits to afford your hair ‘excess interest and individualism’. If you believe shampoo stings, try getting glitter hair gel in your peepers - a common occurrence because a few brands tended to flake off.