That's the only disclaimer I will give to the information that follows.
An interesting phenomenon occurred in the 5 years that I was outside the Beehive State: Apparently an updated hairdo based on the state's nickname was created. I have called this the "Utah Bump." This is the younger cousin to the "Utah Claw" bangs.
Here are some photo examples of what this Utah Bump looks like:
This is the Utah Helmet subspecies of the Utah Bump. This is especially useful for protecting the heads of BYU co-eds after falling from their high horses. (Note the several trophy wedding announcements on the fridge)
This chick is apparently an award winning hair stylist... from Ogden. Notice how it looks like the back of her head is either floating away, her hair is being pushed up by the gang of rodents living on the back of her head, or she is a robot with the service panel being left wide open after getting that over anxious smile and big empty look in her eyes.
Amy Winehouse before her recent concert at the E-Center in West Valley. She said that she wished she could get her hair higher, but her brittle frame wouldn't support the weight of that much hair product. She did another line of coke to take the pressure off, hoping that she wouldn't be judged too much, stating she "just wanted to fit in."
I saw this young woman (or someone who looked a lot like her) leaving a scrapbooking store in the Provo Towne Center recently.
Who do I blame for all this bad hair? Well, it's hard to pin it down to just one set of people. For instance, one could hold culpable the masses of women who find it their responsibility to deem every hairstyle "cute" no matter how egregious the hair crime. Apparently the premise behind this is that all women have fragile self esteems, and therefore you do not want to topple their delicately arranged tower of crystal wine glasses by telling them they have a bad haircut. What then happens is that these women actually start to believe this and then perpetuate the madness.
This is exacerbated by the legions of Mormon girls in Utah who decide that they want to go to collage and become cosmotologists so that they can give out plenty of haircutes to all their release society sisters. These poor girls are so out of touch with reality that they cannot be trusted for an honest evaluation of a person's hair style. Notice I am not referring to bona fide stylists, rather the dime-a-dozen, ambition-lacking, purple-spikey-haired legions relegated to servicing the walk-in crowd at Dollar Cuts.
Now the phenomenon seems to be dying out, for which I am happy. However, like all bad things, it probably won't ever die. The fact that this is a fashion that has passed the way past its pirme point was confirmed to me while my sister and I were watching TV over the Christmas holiday. I have added the commercial for your consumption:
After seeing this commercial, my sister and I started a game where we would spot potential Bumpit users. Being that we were shopping in Utah County and at such highbrow stores as TJMaxx and Ross, you can only imagine how many in this product's market demographic we were able to spot. You might also be able to guess what my sister is going to get for her next birthday.
Perhaps it's too early to recognize this hair style as a regrettable one (such as the Utah Claw in its heyday), but, it was difficult to find very many images on the internet of such hair. I think I might start a contest for the best example of the Utah Bump you can find and post. I might even throw in a set of Bumpits as a prize to the winner. Done and done. The contest is on!
