You and Your Hair (1978)
Elaine Budd
Scholastic Book Service
In which girls learn that their hair can be a faithful friend or their deadliest enemy. The book is careful to reinforce notions of egalitarian hairism, repeating frequently that all forms of hair--straight/curly, dry/oily, blond/brunette/red, thick/thin--is equally beautiful if styled correctly, a notion that I'm sure most girls in 1978 recognized as absolute crap. As The Shaggs once sang in Philosophy of the World
The girls with short hair want long hairand the girls with long hair want short hair
How true. Here the Shaggs shows us that desire is always elsewhere. And so it is with hair, a feature with which no one ever appears truly satisfied.
Tips are also given here about how to use a blow dryer and behave in a salon. As these books were ordered through the SBS in junior high school homerooms, there are also some rather straightforward guidelines as to what age certain hair experiments are appropriate. 16 years-old means you can "enrich" your color if you are "mousy." A 17 year-old has earned highlights. But a 13 year-old with a "fake tiger streak" looks weird. "And a 15 year-old who has piled sunshine on top of peroxide on top of salt water on top of a permanent or a straightner is living dangerously, if not actually courting disaster." Details are not given as to what might happen here, but I suspect author Budd means such girls are more likely to get knocked up.
Final bit of advice: barrettes are both utilitarian and decorative.
