Top 10 Worst Hairstyles of All Time

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com

While researching this topic I realized that there are two different ways to categorize bad hair. You can either talk about bad choices made by famous people that didn't necessarily incite a trend (what I refer to as a bad "haircuts"); or you can go with hairdo fads (what I will call "hair styles"). No one would dispute that Dog the Bounty Hunter's hair is laughably putrid, but calling it an actual hair style would be a misnomer since one mistake does not a style make. So there will be two separate lists- The Ten Worst Haircuts of All Time, and the Ten Worst Hairstyles of all time. The Ten Worst Haircuts of all time will be posted tomorrow.

The 10 Worst Hair Styles of All Time


10. Corn Rows.
This trend was out of control in the early 2000's and has been mercifully reigned in as of late. This trend engendered plenty of similarly unfortunate offshoots including chicks with corn rows, white people with corn rows, the poorly maintained corn rows where you couldn't even see the individual rows anymore, and finally the corn row/long braided hair combination. Like most trends, what ultimately did the corn row in were the unfortunate offshoots and sheer ubiquity. Perhaps the only good aspect of this trend is that it was one of the very few dark chapters in black history that white people had very little to do with.


9. The Hare Krishna

It always amused me how this cult's name sounded like "Hairy Krishna" yet their hair was so goddamn bad; the shaved head, with the little tail-like tuft growing out of the back. While it was great for making one's head look like a horse's body, it sucked for everything else. Nothing screams "Hey, I'm a creepy-ass cult member, make sure not to take seriously what I'm about to tell you." like that haircut. In the interest of full disclosure, when I was little I thought they were called "Hairy Christians".

8. The 1970's- Pete Rose/Bobby Brady

While this trend is named after these two men, I categorized it as a style and not a haircut because our historical records indicate it was in fact a style back then. It's much easier to call it the Pete Rose/Bobby Brady than it is 'That kinda bowl-like hairstyle in the 70's where the ears were completely covered and it was just unfortunate all around." You know Pete Rose has a bad haircut when Artie Lange makes fun of it in Beer League. When Artie calls out your fahsion sensibilities, it's time for change. And as Bobby Brady taught us- "When it's time for change you've got to rearrange." You've just got to.


7. The Bowl/Wedge Hair Cut

Not the bowl hair cut like the Beatles had, I'm talking about the early 90's hair style where the top was long, but lower part of the head was buzzed. The idealized version of this haircut was accessorized with spandex shorts, and a Body Glove or Vuarnet shirt. It is considered by many to be the second-worst hair trend for white, middle-class youngsters of the last 40 years, behind only the hairstyle mentioned at #8. Did I have that haircut in third grade? That's none of your business.

6. The Compensatory Long Hair on a Balding Man

Michael Bolton's haircut is the most notable example, but lets not forget David Crosby and Gallagher and all the aging bikers, liver-warted rockers, geriatric singer-songwriters, and saggy-balled hippies have proudly displayed this plumage for at least two generations. One can never be too sure of just what their (failed) rationale is for that follicle rendering- my best guesses are somewhere between "Bald? What you mean 'bald'? Check out all that I've got going on back here, buddy!" and "My biological age? 58. But the age I feel inside? Old enough have to have a terrible haircut!"


5. The Combover

Not parted hair, but parted hair attempting to conceal baldness. Really, this is just the x-axis version of #6, but a separate style nonetheless. Some are worse than others, but the ethos remains similarly awful. I have always been tempted to tell someone with a combover that I'm impressed that at their age they still have a full head of thick hair, just to make them think that all their hard work was worth it. Why? Because I care.

4. The Trailer Park Femme Frizz.

This has been championed contemporary luminaries such as Eminem's mom (pictured right), and Aileen Wuornos. The preferred medium for this haircut is of course, heavily peroxided hair. The ideal wearer of this hair will have tight black jeans, some kind of old t-shirt (possibly of Lynyrd Skynyrd, though not necessarily), faded tattoos, and of course a cigarette dangling from her mouth. Additionally, screaming at step-children for playing too close to the driveway really rounds out the overall look and feel of this style. While this trend appears to be an homage to the Farrah Fawcett hairstyle, it has truly thrived on it's own for nearly two full decades since Farrah was last popular, and it shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. Of all the hairstyles and haircuts listed here, I've always thought that this is the one that would feel most like cotton candy.


3. The Rat tail

Little is known about this elusive haircut, other than it's obvious ugliness. It's natural habitat is on the heads of young white trash, but there have been occasional spottings on other races as well- namely Hispanics and Blacks and 1980s lesbians. While some theorists have posited that this trend can be traced back to the popularity of the Davy Crocket coonskin cap, others remain skeptical of that theory. What is universally accepted by experts is that it never enhances the appearance of whoever is wearing it. On a personal note, I would like to add that in 2nd grade our entire grade got tested for headlice by the school nurse. One kid had it. That kid was the only kid with a rat tail. I never found it if the lice lived just in the rat tail portion, or if they lived on his entire head, though. Either way, that kid was dirty and smelled bad even in third grade.


2. The Mullet. My guess is that when you read the headline for this article, this was the first hairstyle you thought of. So much has been said about it, that I won't attempt to re-gild the lilly. When I typed "Mullet" into the Google Images search bar, I got all kinds of awesomeness and couldn't narrow it down. You may check out the bounty here.


1. The Jheri Curl.

Boy, do I love the Jheri Curl. Some have referrred to this as, "the Black Man's Mullet" since it was surprisingly pervasive in the 80's, yet now brings shame to all who once wore it. Among the many mysterious allures of the jheri curl was it's apparent ability to convince it's owner that it looked best in mullet-form. While Crack cocaine and gang violence are widely accepted as Public Enenimes 1 and 1A in urban areas in the 1980's, I would like to submit the jheri curl as #2. Some of you might be saying, "Another side effect of the Jheri Curl is the ability to render it's wearer unable to ever win an Academy Award." That urban legend (Hellooo) has since been debunked by Jamie Foxx pictured here. Jheri, Jheri, Jheri, Jheri!



This photo is an early picture of N.W.A- Ice Cube, Eazy E, Dr. Dre. and either M.C. Ren or DJ Yella.




See Also: WhereAwesomeHappens' 10 Worst Haircuts of All Time