High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : High School Do’s and Don’ts : Cutting Edge: Hairstyle Trends Are Out, Individuality Is In

Teen-agers on the cutting edge are scissoring, shaving and dyeing their hair, and individual tastes and desires are taking precedence over clone cuts.

“The kids aren’t as trendy as they used to be,” said Rory LaBahn, a stylist at Headlines Hair Studio in El Toro. “If one person has it, they all don’t get it. They’re more individual now, but they won’t go totally out of that realm of acceptability.”

Some, like Cory Bentley, 16, a senior at Mission Viejo High School, aim for a style both original and functional.

“I needed to cut it really short because I have 28 minutes to get ready in the morning before swimming,” she said.

Her hair, which used to be a perm with past-the-shoulders length, is now cut in a distinctive style: one side has close layers, the other long layers down to the middle of the ear with a gradual step from one side to the other.

Bentley said, though, that short hair is not too popular among the girls at her school.

“Most people are trying to grow their hair out, to get it wavy and one length--about six inches past their shoulders,” she said. “I guess most people like long hair because it looks more feminine.

“Guys have a complex about short hair,” she laughed. “(They think) it doesn’t make their girlfriends look feminine.”

Said LaBahn: “You see very few short haircuts for teen-agers. Some of them, though, are pretty fashionable, and they feel confident enough to go with short hair. A lot of those short, little wedgie haircuts are in.”

About long-haired teen-agers, LaBahn said: “A lot of them like perms, spiral perms. They’ve been out for a while, but now that everyone knows about them a little bit more, a lot of people want them.”

Leah Vu, 16, an El Toro High sophomore, chose not to follow the long, perm look. Her hair had been in a plain, bowl cut; however, now it features long, magenta-colored bangs, a close shave underneath and a shoulder-length top layer.

“I was sick and tire of having the same style and everything else seemed so boring and mundane,” she said. “It’s so much easier this way. Besides, I think blue, purple and pink are so much prettier than black, brown or blond.”

And how do her parents react to magenta hair?

“At first they said I better dye it back or they’d cut it all off,” Vu said. “They’ve kind of gotten used to it now.”

Said LaBahn: “(Teen-agers) pretty much stay out of color (for their hair). Parents don’t really go for it. A lot of times, too, the affordability keeps kids away.” Coloring can cost $25 to $35 each time it’s applied, and colored hair needs to be touched up every month or so.

Richard Lewis, owner and stylist at The Endz in Orange, said, “We don’t do a lot of wild cuts like we used to. You can’t get a job with purple hair.”

Black-dyed hair has clouded over the rainbow colors.

Jay Merriot, a 16-year-old El Toro junior, dyed his curly, light-brown hair an inky black and shaved the sides very close, leaving a mop of curls that spill onto his forehead.

“I didn’t like the sides curly, so I shaved them myself,” he said.

Like many other teen-agers who sport nonconformist hairstyles, Merriot says his cut is not inspired by musical tastes or heroes. However, it can’t be denied that music does inspire some scissors work.

O.J. Flowers, a 15-year-old freshman at El Toro, said that in his quest for a new hairstyle he “saw The Boys’ haircut and really liked it.”

“My friends gave me ideas, and then I chose my own style,” said Flowers, who decided on two shaved lines running along the side, with a clump of bangs in front and a close cut all the way around.

Aaron Brookman, a 17-year-old senior at El Toro, wanted short lines shaved on the side of his head--two on the left and one on the right.

“I asked (the stylist), ‘Is this pretty popular?’ and she said, ‘No, no one’s doing it anymore,’ so I went for it,” he said. “Besides, being that the track season is coming up, I had to have it short, and I wanted to put some style in it.”

Said LaBahn: “A lot of times, (this is) the age that you first start experimenting with your hair. Once you’ve cut your hair, you’re fine. Then you’re on the road to trying different things.”