I kept my hair long up until I went to college.  You may think that it was by choice, but actually, it was Mom’s choice.  I was forbidden from cutting my hair, probably because Lisa had cut hers, and mom was traumatized from that point on.  Even though I couldn’t cut my hair, I did on occasion get a perm in my hair to try to combat the stick-straight quality of it.  The perms didn’t hold for very long and I even went to a beauty salon a time or two to get a spiral perm. Those perms worked better than the at-home perms but still weren’t a long-term solution.