While Miley Cyrus’ new haircut has been widely bashed, staff blogger Liz Lane says she should be commended for taking a risk to feel comfortable in her own skin.
How many times have you walked into a hair salon wanting to “switch things up?” You drive to the salon imagining how perfect your life will be after the change: That boy will finally ask you out, that Hollywood producer will finally discover you.
Then, you sit down in the chair and sheepishly say, “The usual.” And there goes your shot at happiness.
I beg to differ. Happiness and beauty do not come in our appearance but in the attitude we have with our appearance.
Exhibit A: Miley Cyrus and her new ‘do.
The consensus I’ve gathered on this hair is that it is weird. Weird, confusing and, well, weird. One student calls it “Malfoy meets Nick Carter.” Even when shown a stunning picture, the boys don’t understand it and mainly ask why she did it. Junior Tim Horsey said, “I’m not one for fashion so I don’t understand this kind of stuff most of the time, but that right there is awful.”
The girls agree with those thoughts but even still, I’ve found that many women are congratulating Miley for being confident in her skin. Junior Emily Gibadlo gives “more power to her” for going against the norm and rocking the short look. Biology student Sarah Robbins said, “Everyone is really judgmental of celebrities but they’re just people. It’s just hair!”
When I started following Miley’s hair transformation, I was a little taken aback. However, the spunky starlet gave me the confidence to hold my own in the salon chair!
Exhibit B: My own hair.
I was born a blonde and as I got older, naturally, I lost it. The horrible washed out color made me even more pale than I already am so I continued to dye it dark for many years. I was simply the girl-next-door. I blended in with the crowd. Then, as Miley tweeted her long over-due transformation, her pictures looked right into my soul. So I printed out her picture and rushed to the salon. No, I don’t resemble the baby of Pink and a ‘90s boy band member. I simply went back to my roots and felt like a whole new woman! I went skipping out of the salon feeling just like Miley. I made the climb to blonde, I couldn’t be tamed, I threw a party in the USA!
That day on Facebook I received 30 likes for the picture release. Compare that to the, maybe, two likes I get on a normal brunette day. Journalism student Sarah Polus even said guys notice her lighter locks more than her darker. While the majority of guys said they notice blondes first, junior Adam Rosenfeld has something to add. For Adam, what actually matters is the girl’s personality. He said, “kindness is the most important.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not the physical hair that gives us meaning. Any book can be judged by its cover but it’s the pages that make it a classic. It’s our rhyme and reason to the hair that gets us noticed. We’re not girls that are tied to a superficial definition of beauty. We are women of independence and self-confidence.
I’m taking Miley’s side on the hair issue, if there even is one. She’s hot because she rocks it. She’s hot because she’s actually happy in her own skin. I have never seen her happier, as much as I can get to know her over Twitter. “People always shoot down what they don’t understand… The only way to achieve beauty is to feel it from inside without breaking it down into individual physical attributes.” Wait, did I just quote Miley Cyrus?
