Ill Winds Make Bad Hair Days

When blustery Santa Ana winds rake Southern California, dirt, tumbleweeds and trash can lids swirl through the streets and firefighters fret over the possibility of a conflagration.

For others, it means a dreaded bad hair day.

Pauline Minton of Simi Valley spent much of the morning during recent winds with a bottle of heavy-duty hair spray before venturing outdoors. The homemaker gets irritable whenever her strawberry-blond hair is in disarray.

“I didn’t want to leave the house,” she said, heading into the gale outside only after shoving combs, bobby pins and a thick coat of hair spray in her hair. The strongest gust didn’t move a strand.

One day, Santa Ana winds clocked at 40 m.p.h. roared through the mountain passes to sea.

“The toupees are flying. You got to watch those hairpieces. I’m worried that they’ll fly off and get stuck on someone’s windshield and cause an accident,” said meteorologist Terry Schaeffer of the National Weather Service.

“People get really upset,” said Hillary Schneider, a stylist at Trends 2000 in Thousand Oaks. “If you have a bad hair day, everything is wrong.”

She offered tips on coping with the wind: Use a deep conditioner, then a gel and then hair spray to anchor a hairdo.

“People are really picky. Hair has a lot to do with your self-image. It’s the first thing people notice about you,” she said.

Ventura psychologist Michael Namm explained: “Hair is really emphasized in our culture. It’s one of the major aspects of how people are seen.”

An exception was Sheila Farmer, who wrapped her head in a six-foot scarf for protection and stood outdoors in Simi Valley soliciting donations for the Salvation Army.

“I used to be self-conscious about my hair,” the 42-year-old woman said. “Now I’m old, so I don’t care.

“You don’t like it, don’t look at it.”