If you remember the 1980s firsthand, you view the decade’s hairstyles through a very different lens than those who’ve seen the looks only through photos, movies, and poorly aged music videos. As a child of the ’80s, I can vividly recall the angles, shapes, swoops, and size of the era’s trends, and the crunchy feel of frozen frizz, the aroma of Aqua Net, and the sound of a brush battling its way through that hairspray.
I never thought I’d see a return to the looks we wore 40 years ago, but with celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Keke Palmer, and Nicole Kidman casually bringing back mall bangs, a gateway to more intense ’80s looks has been opened. There was a time when that might have felt embarrassing, as can be the case with beauty trends from any era, but hindsight often casts a flattering new light on formerly on-trend styles.
“The hairstyles of the ’80s were all about natural texture in its fullest, boldest form,” says Dusty Schlabach, a Los Angeles hairstylist. “Instead of chasing perfect definition, curls and waves were a huge flex in their raw, organic state, typically amplified with a ‘bigger is better’ attitude. The look was about freedom, individuality, and the confidence that came with letting your hair take up space.”
It wasn’t uncommon for people to get perms to create the texture du jour that genetics didn’t give them, but with today’s abundance of styling tools and products—unimaginably futuristic gadgets and formulas compared to what we had back then—you don’t have to make a permanent change to emulate some of our favorite hair looks, even if your strands are naturally stick-straight. Don’t believe us? Read on for some of our favorite, quintessentially ’80s styles that are so easy to re-create at home.
Stevie Nicks’s Brushed-Out Curls
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