What 60-year-old woman, or any age, doesn’t sometimes look in the bathroom mirror while going through her morning ritual of moisturizing, makeup, and hair styling and think, “I’m sick of looking at you!”?
Bored of the same old look, the same old life. Your biggest adventure is changing your mascara from black to brown because it suits you better, or going one step further with a new nude lipstick.
That’s certainly how I felt, going through the same tedious ceremony that many women go through every morning, staring into each other’s eyes with my face uncovered and thinking: Where has it all gone? Do I really look like that?
Twice a week I also tamed and straightened my curly hair with a half-hour blow-dry and curling irons, giving it the shape I’ve had for 20 years, what a friend mercilessly calls my “helmet hair.”
Amanda Platell had the same straightened, blow-dried hairstyle for 20 years before deciding to cut her hair.
And yet, I can barely remember the younger woman who chose the “look” that has defined me for decades. Now, at 66, I longed for a change. I asked myself: What can I do about it? Get a new boyfriend? Complicated. Move house? I love my battered old cabin. Quit work, new job? Unthinkable. Go blonde? Not with my complexion.
Suddenly, looking in the mirror and seeing the same face and helmet-like hair, I had an epiphany: I could wear bangs.
Before you receding men smile somewhat condescendingly at the idea of comparing a haircut to buying a new house or a career change, let me tell you that there is no doubt that, for a woman, changing her hair can be life-changing. OK, it’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s about taking control, even if it’s in a small way. It’s harder to make drastic changes as we get older. Bright eyeshadow just highlights wrinkles. Flirty eyeliner looks like desperation.
I’m no stranger to Botox and have spent thousands of dollars on it in my lifetime, but there’s no denying the signs of aging. I’ve also noticed that my forehead has started to look huge in selfies.
I turned to Google to make sure and found out that bangs can work at any age.
It’s even good for your hair. Hormonal changes, along with lifelong use of dyes and blow-dryers, cause hair to become drier and brittle after age 50.
Cutting it short in the front can keep it looking healthy and hide telltale signs of aging-related damage, like split ends.
A good fringe counteracts the changes that come with age, such as thinning eyebrows and lifting and softening the face.
I did some more Googling and found literally dozens of different bangs. Glamour magazine says there are at least 15 types of bangs (a word I hate): wispy, curtain, curly, choppy, side-swept, straight, long, and layered, to name a few.
Then I saw “before and after bangs” photos of celebrities: Taylor Swift, Anne Hathaway, Cameron Diaz, Keira Knightley, Daisy Edgar-Jones. Maybe my impulsive enthusiasm was making me biased, but they sure as hell almost always looked better “after.”
Next up was the acid test. I texted my friends to see if they approved. To my surprise, they all responded positively, with one helpfully adding: “For the love of God, get rid of your helmet hair, it’s so dated.” So, emboldened, I called my stylist Kerry, took a deep breath and said, “I want a major change in my life.
“A radical change. I can’t go on like this. I want bangs!”
Kerry, who had known me for twenty years and wore a helmet-like hairdo, first asked me if I was really ready, but then brightened up and said, “I’m thinking of Brigitte Bardot.” “She’s 89!” I exclaimed.
No, she meant a young Brigitte: a deep, long, softly textured fringe with sharp strands of hair around my face. Apparently, this “modern Brigitte” is the most in-demand fringe at the moment, especially among women aged 50 and over.
It softens the face, she explained, sending me photo after photo. Loose strands around the cheekbones taper along the neckline, slimming the jaw and emphasizing the cheekbones. Long bangs rest on the eyebrows, to frame and highlight the eyes.
You can wear it resting on your brows or to the side. Plus, it’s low maintenance since it doesn’t require a blow dryer, or so Kerry claims.
Call me superficial, but the idea of looking like Brigitte Bardot (even at 60) won me over.
Of course, I’m not the first to have bangs. I’m sure we’ve all had them before. When I was little, my mother used to cut them with a pudding bowl. I had them in my 20s and 30s, too, when my hair was naturally wavy, before decades of colouring and blow-drying ruined its texture and made it frizzy.
Back then, all my hair needed was a little mousse and a few minutes of blow-drying with a diffuser to make it tousled and beautiful. I fondly remember those days when I had carefree hair.
Anne Hathaway was one of the celebrities, along with Cameron Diaz, Keira Knightley and Daisy Edgar-Jones, whose look convinced Amanda to make the change.
A modern take on Brigitte Bardot’s style, with tapered strands of hair around the face, this is the most in-demand fringe of the moment for women aged 50 and over.
Still, when Kerry arrived for the cut (he makes home visits to long-term clients), I was anxious and already regretting my decision.
What if I hated it? My perfectly blow-dried hair was my armor, I protested. He gently suggested that maybe it was time to let go of the armor. Who needs a shrink when you have a great hairdresser?
It’s worth noting that if you’re going through an internal crisis, you may want to stay away from the scissors.
Bangs are a very common choice after a breakup, when many women try out a dramatic new look, but later regret it. Plus, bangs can take a long time to grow out.
Los Angeles-based hairstylist Sal Salcedo says: ‘Hair is a tool that can reflect social changes.
“Fringes can also serve as a physical representation of change,” she adds, adding that bangs have seen a huge surge in popularity following the pandemic.
This all sounds like gibberish to me. And yet psychologists claim there is such a thing as “stress bangs” or “trauma bangs” and warn that a fringe will not cure underlying feelings of anxiety and depression. As Kerry says, “I have a pair of scissors and a comb, not a magic wand.”
Well, I wasn’t going through a life crisis or a breakup, I was just completely bored with myself and wanted a new look.
To calm my anxiety, Kerry first cut me a light fringe, a “half Brigitte.” She separated a triangle of hair about ten centimeters wide and seven centimeters deep and then cut it.
She said that bangs would look better than my previous hair, since we were cutting off six inches of old, brittle, dead hair. I wasn’t reassured. So she patiently explained to me that as we age, our forehead stretches upward, our nose grows longer, and our eyebrows become thinner. Who among us, after 60, doesn’t regret those years of plucking our eyebrows that left them thin and in need of daily redefinition or even tinting?
A good fringe counteracts these changes, lifting and softening the face, and for just £150, it includes a bit of new colour too. Kerry suggested we lighten my hair as it’s more flattering on a more mature face, so I had the highlight treatment done with honey blonde highlights throughout my darker hair, focusing on the contours of my face to add light and make me look younger.
She blow-dried my hair and showed me the result: no lines left on my forehead.
I must admit it was a shock. I looked very different.
Kerry told me to think twice and assured me that it wouldn’t go crazy or frizzy overnight.
In the morning I combed my bangs and looked in the mirror. What a difference!
I called Kerry straight away and said, “You call that a fringe? I want it deeper, thicker, more tousled – I want a full Brigitte.” She arrived promptly, scissors in hand, to cut me a deep V-cut that extended further towards the crown, with longer strands around the face and neck. I love it.
I’ve freed myself from the tyranny of having to straighten my hair with a helmet and have achieved a flattering fringe that noticeably hides the signs of aging.
But don’t just take my word for it. The Waitrose delivery man, who had to check my date of birth because the bags contained wine, told me: “There’s obviously a mistake on the invoice as you can’t be 66, you look ten years younger.”
A neighbor who arrived to deliver an Amazon package that had been sent to another address said to her: “What have you done to yourself? Do you look a lot younger? A new boyfriend?”
Another friend, not one for compliments, simply asked me in amazement what I had done. Had I had more Botox or perhaps fillers?
I replied quite proudly, “No, I just got bangs.”
