Adventures in Hairstyles

The GR Swim Team has a tradition of bleaching their hair before sections every year. This year was no exception. However, when Ben arrived to the hosting house for the hair bleaching for the year he found a household of sick swimmers. Influenza had been going through the swim team like crazy, but Ben was one of the few to not have the misfortune of catching it. So, he quickly texted to come get him and we did the bleaching at home.

Despite teasing him that he should be supportive of his brother and bleach his hair, Nate has declined to participate.

Coach also said that anyone who placed high enough at section preliminaries to possibly go to state needs to shave their head. More on the section meets to come, but there were two swimmers that were shaving their heads. One of them was Ben.

Step one occurred at the captain's house, with said captain's dad taking the clippers to their heads.

At the end of the gathering both boys were closer to being bare headed, but not quite there.

While Ben was away, we again teased Nate that he should shave his head in support of his brother. He declined, but agreed to a buzz cut. He was in DESPERATE need of a haircut, so I quickly took care of that with our clippers before he could change his mind.

When Ben got home, the work began on shaving everything else. Head, arms, legs, back, and belly. It took a full 45 minutes to get the head bald, another 45 minutes to do preliminary shaving of his arms and legs, and then another 45 minutes in the shower with the razor to finish the job.

We discovered Ben has a lot of hair. Thick, course, tough to shave hair on his head. Lots of light hair on his arms and legs. Not sure if it actually cuts time or is more psychological, but he had a VERY VERY good section meet. As his hair is growing in, all that damaged dry hair (from months of swimming and then the bleaching) is gone too. No need to bring him in for the deep conditioning treatment that I brought him in for at the end of last swim season.