The Sisterhood of Aqua Net

by a (formerly) big-haired woman

Bless your heart for showing up here. This is Tales from East Texas, where the stories are like pine needles—sharp, scattered, and bound to stick to you. Some are pure truth. Some you can’t tell. But all of them bite.

I’ll be writing about people you think you know, places you’ve never been, and the kind of Southern Gothic moments that make you laugh when you shouldn’t. Along the way, I’ll share excerpts from my novel-in-progress, Psalm of Lies, and assorted short stories—some polished, some still kicking and screaming to get their way onto the page. For my first story, I’m starting with the real glue that’s held generations of Southern women together—and no, it’s not Jesus or casseroles:

Southern women of a certain age learned the secret of the Aqua Net mystique at an early age. For me, it was soon after birth when Mama wanted to achieve that quasi-Pebbles look for my hospital portrait. That hairdo, the one where Mama made a spit-slick question mark curl on the crown of my head with nothing but spit and a single application of Aqua Net, lasted through junior high.

In college, I joined my first sorority—the Sisterhood of Aqua Net—an order of Southern women characterized by high-teased, high-density, high-piled hair that could survive a category-five hurricane or a Baptist revival. Even if we'd never met before, members of the sisterhood recognized each other from across the room by that lingering odor of aerosol shellac, by the telltale signs of flies that ventured too close after application and were caught in the hair.

In the 1990s, I was in awe of Ann Richards. There was a woman who sported big, hard, protective hair; hair that could stop a bullet. Ann could spray her hair, then leave it for three months at a time while she ran Texas. No fuss, no worry, except the ever-lingering doubt of whether her head would spontaneously combust if she got too close to the barbecue pit.

Other Aqua Net sisters included Marge Simpson, her cobalt blue tower visible from three zip codes away; the Bride of Frankenstein, whose hair could’ve powered the town if you hooked jumper cables to it; and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, each one wearing a crash-helmet of hair engineered to survive both a tackle and divorce.

But Dolly Parton was—and always will be—the undisputed Queen of Aqua Net. Her hair isn’t just high, it has its own weather pattern. It rises like a holy relic, deflects hailstones, and could hide a family of birds if they minded their manners. She keeps it high enough to scrape Heaven and wide enough to block a man from leaving when she’s not done talking.

Aqua Net was clearly formulated for Marie Antoinette, whose hair was so tall it needed its own scaffolding. She could’ve smuggled the crown jewels, half the French navy, and a few unlucky peasants in there—and when the guillotine finally fell, all that hairspray made her head roll with a wobble.

These days, the young ones reach for designer hair sprays like Big Sexy Hair, convinced that a $20 can will change their lives. Bless ‘em—it lifts, it shines, then twenty minutes later collapses like a toddler throwing a tantrum in the aisle of the Piggly Wiggly. I’ve tried it on my older, hypothyroid hairs—plural, thank you very much!—but for a comb-over that hides my creeping female-pattern baldness, I still crawl back to Aqua Net, the only spray that holds both hair and dignity in place.

Aqua Net is an all-purpose product, too. One spray can keep your panties from riding up, your tube top from falling down, and even spot-weld using Aqua Net and a Bic lighter.

Make no mistake, though. Aqua Net women live life on the edge. We have to—our hair is more flammable than children’s pajamas and old Christmas trees.

And the only antidote for Aqua Net is WD-40, the anti-Aqua Net. That explains why Southern men won’t be caught without it.

If you’ve stuck with me this far, I owe you a drink—or at least another story. Next time, I’ll tell you about the preacher who baptized me in a snake pond and his red-headed wife who tried to seduce my daddy.

Hit “subscribe” so you don’t miss it!

—Carol

(An earlier version of this story appeared in The Met in 1995 and the Tales from East Texas column in The Progressive Populist in 1996)

© 2025 Carol Countryman. All rights reserved.
This piece is part of Psalm of Lies and the ongoing series Tales from East Texas.
Please share the link, not the text. Reprints, excerpts, or readings by permission only: carolcountryman@gmail.com.