Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes and lives? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, thoughts, with posts based on specific prompts. It’s been so interesting over the years to see the different ways each of us interpret the topics. This month’s theme is hair styling tips, but, instead…

This is My Tragic Hair Story

I had to leave THE BEST HAIR DRYER IN THE HISTORY OF HAIR DRYERS back in the states because it was not Korea compatible. They have a different voltage system, like just having adaptors is not enough. I replaced it with a PIECE OF CRAP that WAS Korea compatible. SUPPOSEDLY. Got to Korea. For the first week I was living in places with their own hair dryers that seemed better than my new one so I just used them. When I got here to the room where I’m staying, I took a shower, plugged in the hair dryer, turned it on…it did its thing for like 3.5 seconds then POP FLASH and it was off. Never to turn on again. PLUS my laptop screen was black for like the next 12 hours. Coincidence?? Who knows.

BUT. SO. I’ve lived – me, a female human with hair – with no hair styling tool for SIX WEEKS. No dryer, no straightener, no curling iron, nothing. Oh wait, that’s a lie. I have one velcro roller that I stick my bangs on JUST before they finish air drying. It’s not GREAT, but at least it smooths them a bit.

Then I go outside in the warm weather and walk half a mile to class. And SWEAT. I live in a perpetual state of sweat these days. And I am a face/scalp sweater. My hair gets soaked. My bangs respond to their private steam room by doing flippy doops. It’s not good. It’s so not good.

But I have resigned myself to The Ugly Korean Hair Era.

But Bettye, why don’t you just buy a new Korea compatible hair dryer? Why don’t I, indeed? A) I can’t order anything online (not even food delivery) until I have my Alien Registration Card (ARC) and that’s still a few weeks away. And B), I walk EVERYHERE. Me. A non-walker. A confirmed driver and sitter. I walk over a mile every day Monday to Friday just to get to class and back…and on the weekends I have to prioritize where I put my walking energy. Do I want to eat this week? Then I need to walk to the market. Do I want to meet a friend for dinner? We’re walking there, wherever that is. Do I want to go do something fun? Then I walk to the bus or subway (and the subway is like a minimum of 10,000 steps no matter where you’re going). So…making a special trip to a store that MIGHT have a hair dryer I want…has not been that high on my list. And at this point I should be close to getting the ARC and then I will be able to shop online AS HUMANS WERE INTENDED TO with all the glorious options the web has to offer. Because a hair dryer is a significant purchase, I want ALL THE OPTIONS.

So. My hair looks like crap every day now. Still want my hair styling routine?? Ha Ha.

I’m hoping I can get the same dryer in a Korean model. What made it SO GOOD was that the BLOW was SO HARD. It was like turning a leaf blower onto your wet hair. When you have more blow, a) your hair dries faster and I HATE drying my hair with a white hot passion…it blows so hard it literally blows any curl or flippy doops out of your hair naturally without even the use of a bruch. And b) you’re putting less heat on your hair, which is always better. It’s 2000 watts, which at the time I got it, was like the highest consumer wattage available. I think I’ve seen just a little higher now WHICH EXCITES ME NO END.

Back in the day when I WAS styling my hair, I’d just blow it out with the leaf blower, and once it was allllmost dry but not quite, I’d roll hair onto the large natural bristle brush in six places: front/top, down towards my face – always rolling under…two on each side, and two in the back, like the crown and then one level down. I wasn’t trying to CURL the hair, just to give a little lift and shape at the roots, and turning the warm air on the hair rolled around the brush would smooth it a bit. Then I’d just shake it out and go. No product. I’m not a hair product person, really. I don’t like the feel of it on my hair, no matter what promises it makes.

But that was back when I had a darling and magical hair stylist who made my hair look so good. He disappeared the end of 2020 when the salon closed due to Covid and he was lost to me forever. But I am optimistic (and you know me, I am NEVER optimistic) that I will find a wonderful hair stylist here in Seoul. I’m just waiting til I get my new hair dryer.

Change is right around the corner.

Make sure you visit my friends to check out their hair styling tips…and stay tuned, I almost have a “from Korea” blog post ready – it’s been a LITTLE chaotic and stressful here so far…but things are leveling off and I’m finally starting to feel like OHHHH, THIS is why I came here.

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own