Many years ago my husband asked me, "Why do so many women cut their hair short when they get older?"

[iverglas]

2. heh

I cut mine *shorter* because my long long golden poker-straight locks just looked a little out of place on a woman of my age - but I guess that's your question! Why did they look out of place?

Well, women of my age tend to not look like aging hippies slopping around in whatever they found on the hook that morning. When we do look like that, the image conveys poverty more than coolness. And there are times when I need to look definitely not poor. (Mind you, in situations where it doesn't have any effect on me, I find it amusing to look poor, like when art retailer clerks look at me in my non-label discount store duds and makeup-less visage and non-styled hair and non-designer shoulder bag and patronize me with the "if you have to ask then you can't afford it you fish out of water" look, and then I drop 5 grand on one of their items. Okay, I've only done that once, but it sure was amusing.)

Also, with age, one's face tends to get kind of dragged down, and one's neck looks even shorter (one having a short neck and long face to start with), so one realizes, in one's own case anyway, that one looks livelier with it chopped off at the shoulders. As I do for myself a few times a year, not having darkened a hairdresser's door since I was 16 and was devastated by what one of them did to me for my high school graduation ceremony (which I immediately undid to the extent possible).

So shorter hair, and some lipstick when called for, and my grandma's heavy gold chain necklace and a spiffy coat over a black top and trousers, are my defences against being treated like trailer trash.

I think Hilary Clinton's hair is absolutely dreadful, btw. Does nothing for her, and the flip is really kind of silly.

What I really wanted to do was boast. Never had one hot flash ever. You won't be impressed if I say I'm jealous -- just because after all those years of hearing about the whole rigamarole, it passed me completely by and I missed out on the experience.

So unfortunately, I have no advice to offer. Except that "homeopathic", specifically, is woo nonsense, but there may be herbal/food type estrogen sources that could help. I did buy some kind of supplement once, thinking that I might be having related depression/anxiety symptoms that could be helped, but I just find those things scary and I stuck them in a drawer.