Why Allee's hair went lopsided

Only she could turn a Farrah fail into a forever flex

Ever wonder why Allee’s hair was asymmetrical?

Oh honey, grab a seat. It’s your favorite pink house with a tale of trauma and triumph.

It was 1983. Allee decided to chop off her long curly hair. She went to a new-to-her salon and asked for something fresh. What she got was... the Farrah. Yes, that Farrah. Farrah Fawcett’s famous feathered, flippy, straight-as-a-board style. It was the look in the seventies, but by 1983 it was outdated and definitely not made for tight curls like Allee’s.

She hated it.

In a panic, she opened a bottle of Farrah Fawcett conditioner that she had bought in 1978, the day it hit the shelves. She had never planned to open it. It was a collector’s item. But desperate times called for desperate measures. She slathered it on, hoping it might somehow force her hair to behave.

It did not.

She didn’t leave the house for 31 days. Just me, her, a mirror, and a growing pile of curls on the floor. Every day, she cut a little more off one side of her head, thinking she would eventually stumble on the ideal length and then cut the other side to match.

She never did.

But her “lopsided experiment” stuck. And not only that, it became her signature look. As she put it, “Sometimes I read where people describe my hair as 80s asymmetrical, but to me it’s Farrah asymmetrical all the way.”

Amazingly, years later, she actually met Farrah Fawcett at a mutual friend’s house. “She was really funny and incredibly nice,” Allee said. “When she told me that she loved my hair, I regaled her with the story of how it came to be. It made the biggest hair trauma of my life all worth it because I got to discuss The Farrah with Farrah.”

How great is that?!

—Willis Wonderland

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Big thanks to the Willis Wonderland Foundation for giving me a voice.
They honor the legacy of Hall of Fame songwriter and creative powerhouse Allee Willis by empowering the next generation of creatives. Be sure to see what they’re up to with their Musical Wonders music education program. If you’d like to support what they’re doing (trust me, you do), please go ahead and make a tax-deductible donation today.

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