Long Hair

A quick flip through the music television channels reveals anything but a trend in hairstyles for African American women. It seems as if the latest looks are as diverse as the songs. Black women are at a turning point in their thinking about hair, explains Nadine LeBlanc, who describes herself as an "ethnic hair-care specialist" and owns the homey Penthouse Salon in Leimert Park. She credits singer Toni Braxton with sparking the change.

Do-it-yourself French braids and elaborate up-do's are coming to a head near you--and it isn't due to patient moms or hairdressers alone. Intricate styles such as these are taught to anyone with a few bucks willing to buy one of a number of new books, videos and gizmos designed for even the most amateur beauty school dropout. Bullock's latest video offering, "Tress to Impress," is from Jontee. It plays continually--and is sold--in the hair accessory area alongside the bows and combs.

The alternative music crowd should stop worrying about how the greedy mass media are cashing in on its scene ("Grunge 'R' Us," by Ann Japenga, Nov. 14). The entertainment companies go where they smell a quick buck, and that will never change. Instead of becoming discouraged, the underground should realize that maybe some great music could come out of this. Why don't these bands start singing about the people--baby boomers mostly--who run the companies that exploit them? The mass media would still cash in, but that's not really important.

Giovanni & Son trades in a natural resource that's in no danger of depletion--as long as there are people. Giovanni & Son buys and sells human hair. Run by Steve Mirizzi and his wife, Lisa, the firm sells about 200 pounds of hair a year. That's the equivalent of 800 heads of perfect hair (a head of 14-inch-long hair weighs about 4 ounces.) The toughest part of the trade is tracking down tresses.

Author: Christine Moodie Info: Crown Publishers, 1991. $18 hardcover. 88 pages, includes brief index. Hair is a woman's crowning glory, and a twist here or there can make a simple but sophisticated statement. Thirty hairstyles for women range from the casual to the formal and include looks from a classic English braid to an elegant chignon.

Amy Fisher wore a dark suit to court, with her long brown hair parted in the middle, hanging slightly frizzy around her face. Wrong, wrong, wrong, say experts in such matters. "I would have put her in a French schoolgirl dress with a big collar, a dark color, ribbon in her hair, no makeup," says Harry Munsinger, a San Antonio attorney and trial consultant. "Make her look as young and innocent as possible." And if Munsinger had been advising Mike Tyson, convicted of rape last year, he would have played down the boxer's size and strength by dressing him in pastels and looser-fitting suits.

Jason, a 22-year-old rock 'n' roll drummer, was cursed with hair that wouldn't grow past his shoulders. "I tried everything," says the Hollywood resident. "All the guys in the band had hair to their waist, and I looked like a misfit. It was my duty to get it done." Thanks to modern technology, Jason's thick blond hair now reaches the middle of his back.

Aaron Zoref remembers when he dyed his brown hair red--the color of a boiled lobster. "That was the wildest haircut I ever had," says Aaron, 16, a student at Calabasas High School. "It was definitely a stranger look. I had it pulled back in three different ponytails." Aaron says he outgrew his layered crimson look several years ago and now favors the newest hair trend among teen-age boys: intellectual punk. And it's not just for punk rock fans who read Stephen Hawking.

All across America, or so it seems, women are ready, willing and able to trim their hair to a manageable, sensible length, to snip it in a manner that looks both fashionably attractive and suitable to the demands of their current station in life. The only thing that stands in their way, apparently, is a race of primitive, doltish men who take a certain Neolithic delight in seeing it long.