its all about appearances

I am not a very vain person.  I try to get away with the minimum amount of make up, not because I love my skin and want it to breathe, but just because I don't know how to use it.  I slap on moisturiser and lipstick and sometimes attempt to use an eye pencil and I am done. On rare occasions when its a fancy dinner or someones wedding dinner, then only does the pot of foundation come out.  I do attempt to smudge on some eyeshadow but invariably I have to rub it off as I have no idea what I am doing!  Make up never held any fascination for me,  I have no idea what a concealer is and mascara I can't use as  I have to deal with black streaks it leaves behind on my glasses.  I am hopeless. 
Its the same for my hair.  It used to be wash and wear, no fuss.  I however have to wash my hair everyday as it gets greasy very fast.  As my hair grew longer it was harder to manage but I had let my hair grow out some time back for a few reasons, one of them being that my sons used to hate me with my hair cut so short, that they called me a scary feminist ( and I am being polite here).
With the longer hair, I had to be a bit more diligent on the appearance front and actually had to blow dry it to some semblance of order before I went to work.
Forget style and elegance, with my hair it was about finding someone who knew how to cut Indian hair, and yes it makes a difference.  Chinese hair is straight and heavy, Indian hair generally is wavy and has body and bounce.  hairdressers can and have butchered my locks just because they didn't know what to do with my hair.
Once I found that my mums old hairdressers knew what to do with my hair, I stuck to them.  Its an old hair salon in the old neighbourhood I grew up in, and it hasn't changed.  It is run by a lovely woman, Grace and her sisters. They are all older now but still give the best hair wash ever.  I sat there on Saturday morning in their old plastic chairs having my head massaged and shampooed.  The headache I had, had disappeared (the Gin & Tonics the night before were to blame for the headache)  I did apologise a couple to times to  "Auntie" (in Singapore we call any woman older than us Auntie, and any older man Uncle, as a sign of respect) about my hair being so thick as it was a struggle to shampoo and wash my hair. 
Women like to change things, I don't know if its a nesting thing or just change makes us feel better, but we change out hair, our wardrobes and even the way our home looks often.  I have already embarked on some changes on the home front and I also decided that I had had enough of the very long hair.  I chopped it off.
Not too short though, just long enough to feel feminine and short enough to make it a change