Getting ready for a night out? You're doing it wrong.

by ZOE FOSTER

Over the weekend I was generous enough to dance like a princess (‘goose’) for many hours for a dazzled (‘indifferent’) audience at a friend’s 30^th. It was SO FUN. I haven’t had a good dance – you know the kind, sweaty, wild, hilarious, full of giggles and interpretive/freestyle/contemporary moves – for over a year.

Which saddens me. A dame must dance; it’s good for the soul. (If, like me, you do not like clubs and the like, preferring to save it all up and unleash annually at a house party, you might be interested in No Lights, No Lycra, which is exactly as it sounds but five x more awesome.)

Anyway. A friend of mine was there, a single friend, and she lamented as the night went on that she “shouldn’t have straightened her hair, because she never got any attention from guys when she did.”

After a long slurp from my delicious vodka something-or-other, I (straight hair starting to curl from sweat/headbanging) probed further. Turns out she (ghd-straight hair), and another dame who stood with us (messy top-knot) and joined the conversation, believe that girls with curls get guys, not dames with perfectly straight hair. Guys don’t notice straight hair, they say. Think of the hot girls in movies and ads and stuff – always roughed up, flicky, curly, wavy hair. GIRLS like straight hair, but guys don’t. Now I’ve heard other girls say this something along these lines in the past, but never with such wide-eyed conviction and finger jabs

After a lot of snorting guffawing noises and general disbelief from me, the girls explained that in their experience, waves, curls and messy hair was a more… effective male magnet than when they did their hair perfectly, be that dead straight or tightly back.

It wasn’t actually up for debate, I soon realised, they were telling me, not suggesting it as a theorem. They had the personal proof, for them it held true. Top-knot claimed she gets a lot more attention when she chucks her hair up high and wears big earrings. Men like shiny earrings, she said. And lots of chest and neck on show, she said, somewhat declaring the obvious. And we know how my straight-haired friend was feeling, as she vainly tried to scrunch some texture into her strands.

I thought about it. Perhaps they were right… but only in as much as it’s a confidence thing. That is to say, personally, I feel more me when I have my curls or waves or a bedhead thing going on, and obviously when you feel more you, then you are more likely to exude confidence, and as we all know, it’s confidence that attracts the gents, not the precise kink or ringlet of the hair. If you don’t think you are being perceived as saucy when you have dead straight hair, you won’t feel as saucy. Simple.

But I think there is a bit of the “I’m having a quiet night” law in play here, too. You know the one: where you don’t bother to go home and put on a sparkly outfit, or re-do your makeup, or style your hair, because in your mind, “you’re just having a quiet night/a few drinks”, and you just go in what you’re wearing and with whatever your hair is choosing to do, be that up, down, dirty, whatever, and then it ends up being the most fun/outrageous/wild night of your life.

It’s the old Expectation + Energy Expenditure Vs Outcome ratio, the classic NYE scenario: when you put in too much effort and expect The Best Night Ever, you are acutely denied it, but when you shuffle over to Jess’s for a few drinks in your work clothes, you end up dancing on a table and kissing a man who looks like Aaron Eckhart at 3am.

Kate Upton, giga babe, recently said in a Cosmo interview that, “To me, what’s sexy is when you look like you’re having a good time. That, and when you look effortless and have messy hair.”

I don’t think we should necessarily care what guys find sexy, nor should we be taking advice on what guys like from a woman who would look sexy wrapped in AstroTurf, but I do have to agree with her sentiment on looking a bit effortless and messy-haired and like you’re having a good time as being attractive. Or, in fact, actually having a good time, not just looking like you’re having one. And if that means attempting the worm on concrete*, then so be it.

*Not advised.

Zoe Foster is an author, columnist and porridge fan. Her books include the beauty bible Amazing Face, dating and relationship guide Textbook Romance, and three novels, Air Kisses, Playing The Field and The Younger Man. Find more info on Zoe Foster here, or supervise on her daily procrastination here and here.

Please understand that Zoë Foster cannot respond to ALL your questions – but never fear, there are readers that are bound to know the answers, so don’t be afraid to ask.

 

What do you think of Zoe’s theory? And does it apply to these celebrities?