Whenever there was a special occasion growing up you could always count on the ladies in my family putting their best looks forward. For my grandmother, that meant we’d see her sporting one of two fabulous hair do’s, a head full of coiffed ringlets or an ultra glam bouffant. Considering my grandmother has rather thin, stringy hair, I was always amazed with her mane’s transformation.
As I grew a little older, I payed more attention to her beauty routine, especially when something grand was on the agenda. Why? Because I wanted — no, I needed — to know how she managed her grandiose hairstyles. I’d watch her masterfully unravel foam curlers or shove bobby pins into an almost done “up-do”. But the answer to perfecting her trademark do’s was far simpler than I could have imagined: Hairspray, and a lot of it. And not just any hair spray would do; It had to be Aqua Net! No exceptions or substitutions were allowed. In my grandma’s words, those other sprays don’t work on my hair. Only Aqua Net can keep my style.”
So my grandmother would bring out that tall purple can with it’s iconic netting design and just have at it. The room would fill with a cloud of spray, leaving all the surfaces it landed on sticky to the touch. And I can still remember the smell of the aerosol hairspray as it stuck to the inside of my now.
Finally, when all the mist subsided, what was left was an extremely stiff, but stunning style.