When my son asked me to pick up some pomade the next time I was at the grocery store, I about dropped my teeth.

I think it’s the word “pomade”.  It conjures up images of dashing young men in the thirties, of days long gone, and of greasy hairstyles we thought we’d never see again.  I can’t believe pomade is back in style.

Hairstyles for men have gone through numerous evolutions with required greasy stuff to hold it in place, but up ‘til now they’ve always changed the name to go with the times.

There was Brylcream, butch wax, and then gel.  For the longest time, men couldn’t use hairspray because it was considered a woman’s product.  Some smart person finally put a man’s picture on the front of a can, changed the name to something manly, and found a whole new market.

Now when you go the grocery store, the isle for stuff that is designed to keep your hair in place is longer than the one with stuff to keep it clean.  There’s ultra hold, super ultra hold, medium hold, and shockingly stiff hold.  There’s light spritz, sculpting gel and everything in between.  And yes, there is pomade.  I honestly don’t know how anyone decides what to get.

My oldest son went through a stage when flattops were back in style and we bought the old butch wax to help hold his hair straight up.  We discovered that a little bit of butch wax goes a LOOOONG way.  My then-three-year-old daughter climbed up on his bathroom counter one day when nobody was looking and very carefully combed about half the jar into her long tresses.

I found her there, so proudly displaying her new ‘do.  I touched it lightly, trying not to cry.  It felt similar to bacon grease but with a sense of waxiness that is hard to describe. 

Then we discovered something else about butch wax.  One of the reasons it works so well is because it never washes out.

And she was going to have school pictures taken several days later.

I washed it, oh, probably twenty times with everything I had.  I quickly went from shampoo to dishwashing soap to Tide.  Nothing worked.  I can’t remember what I tried after the Tide but I had to wash it out because it was burning her scalp.  But the butch wax was not even fazed.

I called the beauty shop the next morning in a panic. 

After they stopped laughing long enough to catch their breath, they told me to bring her in.  Picture this little girl with hair so stiff that I could comb it straight out to the sides and it stayed. 

It would have been comical if it were, say, YOUR daughter instead of mine.

We were there for hours.  They finally did some sort of heat treatment that actually melted the wax and it soaked into a towel they had wrapped around her head.  It was the first thing that helped.  A little.  It was really months before it was back to normal.

I still laugh when I see the school photos from that year.  A cute little girl with noticeably stiff hair.  Nothing close to a curl.  Or even a wave.

So now my younger son wants me to buy “pomade”.

Sure, kid.  Just keep it locked up.  It can ruin lives, you know.