I have a complicated relationship with the eighties. Grew up hearing about it secondhand, spent years quietly obsessed with the photographs, and then one January morning I just decided — I’m doing it. A full week of authentic 1980s hairstyling, no modern softening, no half-measures. My regular stylist looked at me like I’d suggested something dangerous. She wasn’t entirely wrong.
What I didn’t expect was how much I’d learn — not just about hair, but about commitment, about the hour it used to take people to leave the house, and about which styles actually hold up in 2026 and which ones dissolve by 11am.
A Week in Big Hair — What’s Inside
Day One — The Big Perm Gamble
I started with the obvious choice. The one that defines the decade in most people’s minds — the big perm. Not a modern loose-wave situation. A proper, tight, voluminous spiral perm with the kind of bounce that makes you slightly afraid to walk through doorways. I booked a salon appointment the week before and spent the night before watching old music video footage for reference.
And honestly? Day One was my best day. The freshly set curls were extraordinary. I walked out of that salon feeling like I owned the sidewalk. My neighbour asked if I’d “done something different.” I told her I’d gone back in time approximately forty years. She nodded slowly and went back inside.
The volume on a fresh perm is something else entirely. It’s not just bigger than modern hair — it’s architecturally different. There’s a structure to it, a confidence. You can read more about how permed hair holds up over the first few days if you’re considering this route, because the maintenance conversation is one salons don’t always have with you upfront.
Day Two — Crimped and Questioning My Life Choices
I gave the perm a rest on Day Two and reached for a crimping iron I’d ordered specifically for this week. Crimped hair is one of those 80s looks that lives in my imagination as deeply glamorous — all those music video girls with their zigzag texture and their absolutely enormous earrings.
Reality check: crimping takes significantly longer than anyone tells you. And if you don’t section properly, you get this patchy half-crimped situation that looks less “1984 music video” and more “slept on a waffle iron.” I made every beginner mistake. The top sections were over-crimped. The underneath barely got touched. I left the house looking lopsided in a way I had to commit to for the entire day.
And yet — and this is the part I didn’t anticipate — by mid-afternoon the crimps had relaxed into this incredible textured wave that genuinely looked intentional. My coworker asked where I got my hair done. I said I did it myself. She assumed I was being modest. I was not being modest. The day accidentally rescued itself.
Day Three, When It Fell Out
This was the bad day. The one every honest diary has to include.
I’d decided Day Three was for the classic feathered layers look — that big, side-swept, layered situation that was everywhere in the early part of the decade. The kind of hair that moves in a single dramatic sweep when you turn your head. I used three different volumizing products, a diffuser, a round brush the size of a small planet, and approximately forty minutes of my morning. It looked magnificent when I left the house.
It did not look magnificent by 10am. Something about the humidity that day — it was warm, slightly damp, the kind of British morning that exists specifically to destroy hairstyles — turned my carefully sculpted feathered layers into something that drooped progressively over the course of two hours. By lunchtime I’d lost about sixty percent of the volume. By 3pm I looked like a woman who had tried to have 80s hair and been defeated by weather.
I ended up pulling it into a high side ponytail — which is, delightfully, also completely period-appropriate — and called it a pivot rather than a failure. The nineties had nothing to do with it. This was still the eighties. Just a different corner of them. If you love vintage hairstyling the way I do, you already know that most days involve at least one mid-morning negotiation with your own hair.
Day Four — Going Full Layered Volume
I came back swinging on Day Four. After the feathered layers incident, I decided to go bigger — which sounds counterintuitive, but there’s a logic to it. The styles that survived the week were the ones that had structural integrity built in from the start, not the ones relying purely on product.
So I did full 80s layered hair: backcombed at the crown, dried upside down, hit with maximum-hold hairspray, and then shaped with my hands rather than a brush. This is the look you see in so many photographs from the middle of the decade — that rounded, almost helmet-like volume at the crown that gradually softens into layers around the face. It’s more architectural than it looks. And it held. All day. Through a coffee shop, a walk home in the wind, and dinner out. My friend took one look and said it suited me more than any hair I’d worn in years.
Controversial opinion incoming: I actually think the heavy-hairspray approach is more respectful to the decade than the soft, “modern take” versions you see everywhere now. There’s something slightly condescending about softening it. The whole point of 80s hair was that it was bold on purpose. You can explore some genuinely wonderful vintage style rankings for other decades if the full-commitment approach appeals to you — the structural thinking translates across eras.
A Tutorial That Actually Sold Me on the Backcombing
Day Five — Prom Hair on a Wednesday
Look at her in this photo — the soft curls pinned up at the sides, the face-framing pieces left loose, the whole thing lightly hairsprayed into something that looks effortless but absolutely isn’t. That’s exactly the kind of updo I was attempting on Day Five. The eighties version of formal hair is a very specific thing: it’s not elegant in the classic sense, it’s voluminous and a little theatrical, and it takes a genuinely impressive amount of product to achieve.
I went for a half-up style — the kind with a high gather at the crown, big curled pieces left around the face, and an aggressively side-swept fringe. This is 80s prom hair territory. The sort of look that required an entire can of Aqua Net in its natural habitat. I used a modern-equivalent freeze spray and tried not to feel guilty about it.
The result was genuinely my favorite day of the week. It felt dressed up in the best possible way — the kind of hair that makes you sit differently, move your head a little more slowly, feel like someone might photograph you at any moment. I wore it to a Wednesday morning meeting and received three compliments and one concerned question about whether I had “a thing” on that evening. I did not. I just had excellent hair.
This kind of structured updo has obvious roots in earlier decades too — if you’re curious about the lineage, the victory rolls of the 1940s share the same love of architectural height that carried right through to the eighties.
Day Six and Seven — Making Peace With the Decade
By the weekend I’d stopped trying to perfectly replicate specific looks and started actually enjoying the process. Saturday was a relaxed version of the perm — fingers-only, diffused dry, no brushing — and it looked genuinely great. Like an 80s woman who’d slept in and still looked intentional about it.
Sunday was my favourite kind of 80s hair: the casual version. A high side ponytail, some face-framing pieces teased slightly at the roots, a thin ribbon tied around the base. Zero effort, maximum era. I wore it grocery shopping and got asked three times what decade I was channelling. One person asked if it was for a theme. It was just Sunday morning.
What I realised by the end of the week is that 80s hair isn’t really one look. It’s a philosophy. Volume is non-negotiable. Hairspray is not optional. And the whole thing works best when you commit fully rather than apologising for it. The styles that felt awkward were always the ones where I’d tried to sand down the edges and make them “wearable.” The ones that were unambiguously themselves — big, sprayed, structured — those were the ones people responded to. That philosophy, by the way, connects all the way back to earlier eras. The history of volume in vintage hair is genuinely fascinating if you want context beyond the aesthetic.
What I Would Do Differently
A few specific things, honestly:
- Start with the hairspray conversation. I wasted two days trying to use light-hold products on looks that required serious freeze. Match the product weight to the era’s actual demands.
- Don’t attempt feathered layers on a humid day. Or find a silicone-based serum that can give the layers some weather resistance before you style. I learned this the expensive way.
- Allow double the time you think you need. The eighties were not a decade for people who were running late. Budget the morning accordingly.
- Do the crimping in sections. I cannot stress this enough. Divide your hair into at least six sections and work methodically. The lopsided waffle-iron incident was entirely preventable.
- Lean into accessories. A ribbon, a wide barrette, a scrunchie at the crown — these aren’t cheating. They’re literally how people wore these looks in the decade itself. They also rescue a style that’s started to lose cohesion by 2pm.
And the biggest thing: don’t try to modernise everything. The styles that work best in 2026 are the ones worn with conviction, not apology. Half-hearted 80s hair just looks like regular hair that went wrong. Full-commitment 80s hair looks like a statement. There’s genuinely nothing in between.
Questions I Get About This
Do I need a professional perm to get authentic 80s volume, or can I fake it?
You can absolutely fake significant volume with backcombing, a good mousse, and a diffuser — and for the layered styles, you don’t need a perm at all. But if you want the specific spiral-curl look of the early decade, a professional perm genuinely is the difference. Foam rollers and setting spray can approximate it for a day, but they won’t give you that structural bounce a chemical perm does.
What products are closest to what people actually used in the 1980s?
Freeze-hold hairspray is the non-negotiable. Beyond that, a volumising mousse applied to soaking wet hair before diffusing is the closest modern equivalent to the styling foams used in the decade. Some people swear by a light pomade on the ends for definition — that also existed then under various names. The main difference is that modern products are usually less damaging, which is a reasonable trade-off.
Can short hair pull off 80s styles, or is this mostly for long hair?
Short hair was extremely present in the decade — the power cut, the asymmetric crop, the teased pixie were all very much part of the era. The volume principles are exactly the same on short hair: root lift, hairspray, and confidence. If anything, a teased short style can be easier to maintain throughout the day than longer versions, because there’s less weight working against the shape.
How damaging is this week’s worth of styling?
More than my usual routine, honestly. The crimping iron and daily heat were the main culprits. I used a heat protectant throughout and did a deep conditioning treatment on Day Seven, which helped significantly. If you’re doing this as a one-week experiment rather than a permanent lifestyle, the damage is manageable — but I’d recommend a protein treatment after the week ends, especially if you used a chemical perm. Your hair will thank you.
The week is done and the big perm is slowly relaxing into something softer. I’m keeping a version of it. Not the full freeze-spray-and-backcombing situation every single morning — I have a life — but the spirit of it. The unapologetic height. The willingness to take up space. If you’re thinking about trying 80s hair yourself, my honest advice is this: do it properly or don’t bother. The half-measures are the ones that look costume-y. The full commitment looks like exactly what it is — a woman who knows what she likes. Questions or thoughts? You’re very welcome to reach out via the contact page — I read everything.
