Caution: Vanity post. (I have one every few years)

During the first few months of the pandemic, most of the world was in a state of lockdown or some sort of directive to stay home. On my social media feeds, I saw friends either cutting their own hair or having someone cut their hair in hopes that it could possibly resemble a decent haircut. Some have succeeded. More have failed and are just relieved they don't need to go out and be seen.

I, on the other hand, took this opportunity to grow my hair long... a.k.a. pandemic hair.

The last time I sported long hair was way back in college. I only had a few photos as proof, and I can't quite remember how I looked. I do remember making the mistake of going to a beauty salon for a hair relaxing treatment (cause I had wavy hair.)

This time around, I had different reasons for letting my hair grow for the past one and a half years, and I wanted to share why.

1. To see how wavy my hair really is. My hair was straight when I was a kid and started becoming wavy when I turned 9 years old. Every time my hair grew an inch or two longer, it would go haywire. One of the ways to prevent my hair grow in different directions was to maintain short hair. So what did I recently discover? I discovered that my hair would curl naturally when long. 

2. Reminds me of my mom. I probably inherited my mom's wavy hair. Having wavy hair reminds me of how mom would always say I also had curly locks, and it runs in the family.

3. Staying at home. Staying at home and working from home meant that I didn't have to meet people in person. Meetings were virtual, and I could easily tie my hair to hide it and make it neat. This also meant that getting a haircut last year was close to impossible, which was totally fine with me.

4. Trying out different hairstyles. There aren't that many you could try out when your hair is short. So far I got to try the ponytail, the full-bodied teased up hairdo (which actually is my fancy term for the look when I just woke up) and spiked hair (with a ton of supergel.) Spikes don't work on curly hair and any possible pointed hair strands turn into a doodle (or scribble) like form after a few minutes. 

5. Thinning hair. When your hair is getting thinner, you'd want enough hair, hopefully to compensate for the balding areas. Having long wavy hair helps in covering thinning spots and gives the illusion that I still have a decent amount of hair... but not for long. 

6. Last chance. You can't grow long hair if you don't have any hair, to begin with. And looking back at the last decade, my thinning hair is not going to grow as much as hair as it used to.  

7. Pandemic. I had an ideal plan to get a haircut when the pandemic ends. But we all now know that the virus is here to stay for the long run. So scratch that plan.

Overall, it was both fun and challenging for my scalp to support more than it's used to.