Sometimes I hear women say "Oh, I can't go out tonight, I have to wash my hair". What's so complicated about this washing of hair?

I always thought it was because it would be wet/not presentable for hours afterward? I know my grandmother would spend hours putting curlers in or w/e they did back in the day…

I always thought that was an excuse to not go out.

I think it was code for “I need to think of some lame excuse not to go out with this guy”. I don’t know if it was serious when it was first used, but it became a joke after some time.

@FutureMemory So then did she only wash her hair once a week or so? And was it not totally gross (but with curl) for most of the time?

@Blackberry @dappled_leaves It always sounded that way, but you’d think people would come up with better excuses.

What that is code for is: You are not worth all her time to get presentable so go away.

@Aethelflaed i really don’t know. I could ask her if you want? I see her on a regular basis.

@FutureMemory Yeah, that could be cool. If you think of it around her.

Anybody…women included can wash their hair in 3 minutes or less….but bathing the whole body can add a few mins…then you have the shave for both men and women needs. So we are now in the 10 minute plus column and I have yet to meet anyone male or female who doesn’t love to simply relax under the spray of a soothing shower.

That said…it is outside the shower where things get dicey and out of hand and time will seemingly grind to a halt if there is a reservation made.

All that said…take a chill pill and let the lady do their thing and let her know you appreciate all the effort or else! ;)

I have always seen this as code for “I don’t want to see you”. Does anyone know anyone who has actually had this said to them in real life?

I can wash my hair pretty quickly and it doesn’t need a whole evening.

@Aethelflaed, I think the point was that it was a bad excuse! Like “I’d rather be washing my hair than go out with you.” or “I can’t be bothered to think up a decent excuse not to see you.” :)

I think it means you’re from 1975.

I think they make the water from scratch.

It really depends. When my daughter had her hair almost to her waist, it was a long process. She has a thick head of hair that was also curly. Once a week it had to be deep conditioned and there was no room for rollers, so that meant letting her hair air dry for a few hours and then finish off partly with a blow drier and then a straightener. I would help her and would have to stop because of the hand cramp. She couldn’t use hair straightening treatments because she had eczema and it was risky to use harsh chemicals on her skin. During the week, when she would wash her hair than all she could do was wash it, dry it with a blow dryer and then braid it till the weekend so it wouldn’t get out of control.
It didn’t take the whole day but at least anywhere from 4 to 5 hours on a Saturday or Sunday night.
Now she has it short and better stuff is out to help her manage her hair easier.
But most of the time, it just means its my day to do all the things I put off all week long.
Cleaning, laundry, chilling, manicure, shopping, pedicure, sitting down with a bowl of icecream to a nice relaxing movie or reading a book, or simply I had a long week and I don’t feel like going anywhere this weekend.

It’s not code for anything…. at least not when I say it. My hair is almost to my waist, and it takes forever to deal with once I have washed it. I really do refrain from going out sometimes, if it requires washing my hair first. I need advance notice to go out if my hair is dirty, long hair is a lot of work.

@Bellatrix

“Does anyone know anyone who has actually had this said to them in real life?”

Yes- it was said to me in 1967. Perhaps she had another reason not to go out that night, but we continued our de facto monogamous relationship after that anyway.

IIRC, her hair was fairly long, so to paraphrase @ANef_is_Enuf, washing her hair was probably a lot of work, so I’m fairly sure that was why she didn’t want to go out that night.

That line is older than portable hair dryers and probably also older than showers as standard bathroom equipment. Hair washing, especially of long hair, could be a slow and cumbersome process, and drying slower still. You didn’t do it every day. So it made a good excuse to turn down an invitation. From there it turned into a cliché and punch line.

If you were curling your hair, you probably set it wet and expected to sleep on it. You simply couldn’t be beautiful on short notice.

@Cruiser, I find showers boring and a huge waste of time; I don’t enjoy them at all—I just like myself better afterward than I did before. As for shampooing in three minutes, nonsense. My hair is just past shoulder length now and still growing out. It takes me a good bit longer than three minutes to shampoo and rinse twice and then use conditioner. But the slow part is (a) towel drying, (b) combing out—slowly, easing out the snarls, (c) adding a gentle oil treatment, and then (d) blow-drying. The whole operation takes most of an hour. I never use it as an excuse to avoid engagements. But when I was a teenager, my hair was waist-long, I washed it in the sink, and it took hours to dry, yes, I could.

It’s got to be that whole “towel turban” thing they have going on. No matter how hard I try (I attempt it just for fun) I end up with a pathetic knotted mess on my head.

@ucme isn’t your head shaved?

@ANef_is_Enuf Indeed it is, oh perceptive one. As I say, I try it just to see how it’s done, usually with the wife laughing at me as I go.

There is one of those sayings that I have heard that people say but I have never actually heard anyone say it. I just thought it was a cliche and meant to mean “I would rather do something really mundane (like washing my hair) than do that (whatever is being offered/asked of them”. I would be offended if someone told me that they couldn’t do something with me because they had to wash their hair.

@Jeruba No wonder you find showers boring as taking more than 3 minutes just to shampoo your hair you have turned that into a chore! Showering IMO should be relaxing and is more-so with someone to scrub your back ! ;)

@Jeruba, do you really wash and rinse twice? I always thought that instruction was a clever device by shampoo companies to increase their sales. Does anyone else actually do this?

Huh. I’ve had long hair (maybe half a foot above my butt?), but the washing and conditioning has always been fast, as has the combing out. The drying, not so much, but I’ve also done quite of bit of buns and braiding to combine the drying and styling.

@Aethelflaed I think part of it also has to do with the natural texture of your hair. Personally, I have a ton of hair, but it is very fine. Being fine, it is prone to damage, so I avoid blow drying at all costs, especially being as long as it is. My hair isn’t well behaved. Once it is dry there is no guarantee that my natural curl will be even remotely presentable, often times half of my head will be in tight curls and the other half will be almost poker straight. It would be extremely rare for me to not have to either straighten, or touch up my curls with an iron or wet my hair again and re-shape the curls. Both of which take at least an hour to do with as much hair as I have, at the moment. I’m sure it is a matter of personal preference, to a degree, but I can’t just go out with my hair wet in a bun or a braid, or similar style, because it looks stupid on me. So, long hair is part of it, but the other part is that I (and I’m assuming other people that really have to put a lot of work into their hair) don’t have naturally “nice” hair. “Wash and go” has never been in my vocabulary, my hair just doesn’t cooperate like that.

@ANef_is_Enuf Gotcha. Mine’s straight and course. I’d just put it in a bun or a french braid at night, and then it had some wave when I woke up with it dry. Or just put it in a ponytail and not give a crap.

@Aethelflaed well, I think the point I was trying to make is that it isn’t always a brush off. Having to wash my hair the day of an obligation, rather than the night before, makes for a lot of work… and almost a guarantee that my hair is going to look like crap until the next time I wash it. :)

The thing about the “I have to wash my hair” statement, though, is that it wasn’t usually invoked for a same night event. It was more like, “I can’t go out next Thursday, because I have to wash my hair.”

@dappled_leaves, I do, yes. Hair differs greatly from one person to the next. Mine is fine and tangles easily, and even at my age has enough natural oil in it to need a good, soapy scrub. When I’ve tried to get away with one round of shampoo, it always turns out as if I hadn’t used any, regardless of which product I use.

What I have started to do, and it is actually a response to someone’s post here, is to lather up my hair and then leave it on while I was my body, then give it another good scrub and then rinse. Someone here posted something in a thread to say it takes the second wash to loosen any grease and dirt properly and that’s why we should do it. Which would sort of fit in with what you are saying Jeruba. I am usually rushing, so I just leave the shampoo on and give it another good scrub before rinsing. It actually seems to have lengthened the time between washes though. Which to stay on topic, frees me up for any potential dates…