Part of a weekly look into the adventures of Lisa Chin
- Enjoy a long weekend on a camping trip with your friends.
- Read a long book very quickly (or a short book very slowly).
- Maybe train a dog (or a boyfriend) to do cool tricks. (Yeah I didn’t think it was enough time for the boyfriend either).
According to a survey, women spend an average of ten minutes a day brushing, drying and maintaining their hair. To me, this figure seems generous. As a woman with very long hair, my routine used to consist of:
- Wet hair
- Wash with shampoo
- Rinse
- Apply conditioner
- Use fingers to quickly and inefficiently detangle
- Rinse
- Towel dry
Time elapsed so far: two minutes.
- Step out of shower
- Brush hair (with an actual brush)
- Take fingers to twist slightly
- Use blow dryer
- Perform contortionist maneuvers to bend and twist between the wire of the dryer and the small confines of my bathroom that would impress any circus maestro
- Halfway through, brush again
- Dry some more
- Brush a little more
- Make a poodle jump through a hoop of fire
- Why isn’t it dry yet?
- Twist again with fingers
- Tie up hair into bun so the rest of now damp hair dries wavy
- Take hair out of bun later, finger brush again.
- Look into mirror with slight dissatisfaction.
Time elapsed: I’m guessing more than eight minutes.
Now, some women have less of a routine than this, others have way more.
With an already busy schedule, I would sometimes wonder to myself: what would happen if I just stopped brushing or drying it altogether? How bad could it get if I only perform the first part of that routine.
Maybe I could grow some cool Asian dreads, or help save the planet as a bird sanctuary. Surely, the temptation to nest in my unruly coif would be irresistible.
After wondering a few times, I decided to give it a try. Fast forward to now, here I am, six months later with a dusty hair brush and dryer. It really only took about a week before I came to the conclusion that, oh yeah – I forgot I have Asian hair. Silly me!
I had just never thought to try out laziness long enough to be able to conclude anything as life changing and marvelous as this. My hair not only looks the same as it always have, there are days it looks even better.
What I am saying is, on average, we may have gotten the short stick when it comes to bra size, but don’t forget you’re Asian, and your hair will excel in areas where you don’t want it to do anything in particular. I guess I had more in common with my hair than I previously thought.
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Lisa Chin is a Senior Interactive Director at SNAP Interactive and the newest columnist for Wika Magazine. You can check out Lisa’s online portfolio here.
