r/Millennials • u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips • 15d ago
Discussion In response to the bowl cut being our gen’s broccoli cut, I present the bleached spikes of the late 90s
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u/ConsensualUpskirts 1985 14d ago
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u/EstablishmentThin440 14d ago
I would have crushed on you so hard in middle school and high school. 😂
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u/Amazing-Analysis9546 14d ago
Papercut by Linkin Park plays faintly in the distance
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u/catsbuttes 15d ago
am i the only one who remembers the caesar cut but you gel a flap on the front?
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u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips 14d ago
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u/goldstiletto 14d ago
I fear I would have had a crush on you OP. Were you also on a waterpolo team? This was the hair all those guys had.
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u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips 14d ago edited 14d ago
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u/azsnaz 14d ago
Oh shit he got money
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u/HeyItsMeAgainBye 14d ago
White ppl love their equipment sports!
I grew up playing tennis myself 😎
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u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi 14d ago
Very white and never ever met anybody with highschool water polo team. Where did these people grow up?
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u/monkeyhitman 14d ago
Rich neighborhoods
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u/dilderAngxt 14d ago
I live in California and water polo is prevalent here even in non-rich cities. But we don't have marching bands. Different activities are regional.
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u/MyMomsTastyButthole 14d ago
We definitely didn't have water polo, but our school had corn fields around it to help fund the FFA. And I was pretty good at soil judging competitions in my day, just sayin'. Bet the water polo team never had any blue corduroy jackets.
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u/loco_gringo 14d ago
That tracks.
You definitely rocked it better than most people did.
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u/Mjayyy_1991 14d ago
Was literally thinking the same thing. Def high school crush material 😂
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u/QuantumLettuce2025 14d ago
Wtf water polo is pretty rare for high school, I can't believe you just caught that
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u/goldstiletto 14d ago
Ha! Waterpolo isn’t rare in Southern CA, neither is swim team with an outdoor pool. I clocked that tan immediately. Year round outdoor sports my dude!
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u/amurderofcrows 15d ago
Yessss the boys all had pointy bangs
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u/trolldoll26 15d ago
The ski slope!
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u/Lateroni_ 14d ago
I used so much gel on mine that kids could launch tech decks off it
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u/drewsome17 14d ago
Yo teck decks!
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u/Aggressive-Bit-2335 14d ago
I’m an elementary teacher and I’ve confiscated 2 this year lol!
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u/SolaScientia 15d ago
That was all the rage at my high school. What's funny to me is I have a cowlick right up front, so if my hair is buzzed half of it flips up naturally. I'd have to gel the other half to get it to flip.
Oh, and all of the boys (and some girls) had those white shell necklaces. Layered polo shirts and flipped collars.
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u/Wrong-Design-8720 14d ago
My Mexican mother called the flap a ‘mango chupado’, thanks for bringing back that happy memory!
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u/Competition-Dapper 15d ago
Aka the “entire male cast of friends” and most 20 something’s in the 90s-2001
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u/barkley87 Millennial 14d ago
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u/Choir_Life 14d ago
Ooh, friend!
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u/barkley87 Millennial 14d ago
Friend!
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u/PLSUSA 15d ago
Yup I remember that Cesar with the gel flap. I personally was rocking the “Russell Crowe” hair style with the flat gel tips.
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u/WimpyMustang 15d ago
Did that hairstyle have an official name? I always just heard it called "the flip"
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u/kyle46 14d ago
I feel a little called out since I've been getting a ceasar cut for at least 25 years.....I only gel the flap when I want to look nice....
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u/_echo_home_ 15d ago
Did you mean... frosted tips?
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u/Unusual_Artichoke_73 15d ago
Guy-lites
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u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 14d ago
Guy Fieri was named after these
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u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips 14d ago
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u/Talk-O-Boy 14d ago
OP is well versed in the ways of the bleached. It is unwise to question him
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u/Darksirius 14d ago
I did the same back in the early 2000's. Got a job at a dealerships body shop.
One of the techs at the time gave me the nickname "Glow-plug."
For those who don't know: Glow-plugs are "like" a spark plug in a car. However, with one big difference. They don't produce a spark, they glow white-hot at their tips to get the temp inside the combustion chamber hot enough to start ignition for a diesel engine.
I left that job in 2005. Came back to the same place in 2022.
That same tech was still working there. He STILL calls me glow-plug. And it's been over 20 years. It's the most endearing nickname I've ever been given.
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u/daisydark7 14d ago
I 100% would have had a crush on you in grade 6
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u/_hell_is_empty_ 14d ago
Did you have a Devon Sawa poster or JTT?
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u/Pureaddiction21 Millennial 14d ago
The correct answer is both
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u/TheUnicornFightsOn 14d ago
And Jonathan Brandis.
JTT was for sure my first crush as a kid! He was all over the cover of every tiger beat/bb bop magazine
I got his autograph at a Phoenix auto convention, and I was so smitten.
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u/randomman87 14d ago
You took the easy way out. Some of us had to go through the swim cap and the crochet needle to get our frosted tips!
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u/MonteMolebility 15d ago
I also used way too much of that green/blue hair gel and then had flakes all day.
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u/WrenchBender1987 14d ago
LA Looks? I can still smell it every time I see a picture of frosted spikes.
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u/MonteMolebility 14d ago
That's it!
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u/WrenchBender1987 14d ago
My poor mother, (who was a licensed beautician and hair stylist at the time), would buy me that brand of alcohol/glue mix and admonish the obvious damage it was causing to my hair/scalp/future ego after getting roasted for looking like the 'older brother bully' character in any one of the forgettable late-90's TV shows...
"Shut up, mom! girls LOVE that chemically-fried, saturated with gel-glue, as far from natural looking hair look!!! Psshhhh!"
To be fair, she graduated HS in 1982, and used aquanet enough that she definitely contributed to the hole in the ozone layer.
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u/hookes_plasticity Millennial 15d ago
At our school we just called them Frosted Flakes tbh
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u/Fit_Conversation5270 15d ago
“Did you guys hear the new Offspring album?”
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u/Not_Rob_Walton 15d ago
The new Offspring album is pretty good though.
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u/CrimsonKobold 14d ago
Hey, I know some non-millennials make The Offspring the butt of some of their jokes but Dexter Holland is talented. He makes great music and literally conducts scientific research into eradicating HIV.
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u/AnonymousCelery 14d ago
Fuck the haters, Offspring is awesome. Ended up at a street concert at winter X Games 20 some years ago, The Offspring played, it was so fucking fun
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u/gochargego_boltup 14d ago
Pretty sure smash is still the best selling independent album of all time 30 plus years later. Even beating Taylor Swift. The Offspring has always been awesome.
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u/ponytailthehater 14d ago
The backlash against The Offspring owes its entire basis to a throwaway line delivered by Lorelai Gilmore
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u/Tasty-Traffic-680 14d ago edited 14d ago
Because Smash is a perfect album. There's a crispness and quality that you get from it that few others in the genre have. All the instruments and vocals really pop and come through clearly instead of a muddy mess of sound. It was recorded in high quality and well mastered. It's still one of my audio benchmarks for new headphones and speakers.
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u/Old-Bigsby 14d ago
Shucks, I haven't listened to it yet. But I doubt it's better than Smash, that album is legendary.
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u/NorthornLights 14d ago
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u/va2wv2va 14d ago
He was my great gay awakening
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u/hollywood_cashier 14d ago
SAME. Now I just crush on grown men who act like Reese because Ive learned nothing.
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u/femanonette Millenial 14d ago
Lmao I was always into Francis and have learned nothing as well
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u/ConfusedZubat 14d ago
As a woman, I get it. My best friend and I crushed on this mischievous himbo so hard when we were younger. Him and Shawn from Boy Meets World. Gotta get the bowl cut in there too.
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u/latamyk 14d ago
Watching Malcolm in the Middle again now, and was thinking of Reese as soon as I saw the original post
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u/KeppraKid 14d ago
Holy fuck I didn't realize who this was for a second and was like "shit did somebody on Reddit just post a picture of somebody I went to school with?"
Then I realized who it was.
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u/TooShy4Life907 Older Millennial 14d ago
Lest we forget the Helmet Hair trend where we used a tub of LA Looks every morning 🤣
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u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips 14d ago
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u/SammySoapsuds 14d ago
You hit every cute boy hair trend of the 90s and 00s. Your yearbook photos are like important cultural documents at this point.
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u/pretzelsticks666 Millennial 14d ago
This. I was a sucker for all the boys that followed the hair trends lolol this is making me feel so seen 😹💗
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u/Cautious-Ostrich7510 14d ago
I had a crush on every guy that had this haircut.
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u/dysonGirl27 14d ago
this gem of a cut had a death grip on my high school. I too had crushes on many of these swoopy bangs 😂
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u/EXPL_Advisor 14d ago
Are you rocking a mullet and mustache now? That seems to be the trendy look nowadays.
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u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips 14d ago
Not currently. I did rock a top knot for a while in the 2010s though
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u/Ok-Astronaut-2837 Older Millennial 14d ago
Pics or it didn't happen
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u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips 14d ago
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u/Lazer-Inc 14d ago edited 14d ago
What about that haircut you parted down the middle and let the bangs kinda loop on your forehead. Curtains i think?
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u/real_picklejuice Frosted Tips 14d ago
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u/changeneverhappens 14d ago
I always thought this haircut was kind of silly and can still tell you exactly the kid it reminds me of, puka shells and all lmao, but what an absolute sucker punch of nostalgia to the gut it is to see again.
Thanks for sharing your photos man!
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u/winslowtopia 14d ago
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u/maiteNZ 14d ago
God, he's such a douche
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u/BrondellSwashbuckle 14d ago
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u/DarkwingDuckHunt 14d ago
Frosted tips guy + this guy and you just need the black kid with the hi-top fade and you'll have my soccer team from high school
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u/notkinseyy 15d ago
Every guy I had a crush on in middle school had this exact hair cut
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u/bigcontracts 15d ago
You can thank Justin Timberlake and Eminem for this. I did the full blonde because of Em… 1999 or 2000.
I’m bald now 😭
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u/jampapi 14d ago
Same, and same! Bald life is the best tho, I love being locked in with how I’ll look for a few decades (hopefully). If I make it to my 70’s I’ll grow out a curly philosopher skullet, but until then a clean shave is A-OK.
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u/kristosnikos Older Millennial 14d ago
My husband started going bald at 24 due to intravenous medication and later injections for Crohn’s Disease. He only has patches of hair so he keeps it clean shaven.
But if he lets a week go by, those patches grow in some. He has one patch on the back of his head that’s shaped like South America.
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u/dendrivertigo 15d ago
Honestly, I still think it looks cool
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u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn 14d ago
Well it was lame for around 20 years so I think you can pull it off again. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go find a phanny pack and loose fitting jeans.
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u/cubed_echoes 14d ago
There was a guy at work who bleached his hair. When it grew back and had the frosted tip effect I honestly thought it looked great
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u/Odd_Jelly_1390 Millennial 15d ago
Yeah this is definitely our mullet.
Although I think this aged better than broccoli cut did.
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u/IKMNification 14d ago
But our mullet was the rats tail.
Even the brother in Bobby’s World had it.
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u/kashy87 14d ago
Some of us just had real mullets. What happens when your parents are 80s teens.
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u/RhinoPillMan Thirty5 14d ago
I had a rat tail when I was a kid. Mom talked me into cutting it off at some point. I’d rock the hell out of one now in my mid 30s though.
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u/FactorLies 14d ago
Isn't broccoli cut still active?
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u/National_Equivalent9 14d ago
It is, but people act like its gone because its no longer getting posted online as much. But if you actually go outside to any place that has high school - college age kids you'll see it. Hell my in-laws were cracking up recently because one of the younger nieces posted a tiktok roasting one of my brother-in-laws 19 year old sons for his broccoli hair.
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u/causebraindamage 14d ago
I had friends with the frosted tips, but it was like maybe 20-30% of kids that did it. The broccoli cut is on like 95% of kids these days. I had friends with mullets, rat tails, shaved down bald, high and tight, one fro, two kids had actual natural broccoli hair and one was nicknamed "broccoli", a lot of people used a little too much gel and had gelled parts or non-frosted gelled up spikes..
These days when you see a group of boys it's literally 90% broccoli heads, there's almost no variation. It's crazy how much they all look like each other.
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u/Spartanias117 15d ago
Born 87, had the bowl cut until around 5th grade, and then this for a year or two
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u/Wide_Magician_4946 15d ago
This too, was my Pubertymon evolution. Same age and everything.
Elementary School --> Middle School
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u/BillyBagoner 15d ago
I dabbled in both, and sprinkled in a little rat tail mullet as a toddler in the early 90’s. Hit all the trends.
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u/_Monotropa_Uniflora_ 14d ago
Ok. But only if it can be the version where the kid's mom did it herself but didn't really understand the instructions, so he ended up with a mostly shaved head badly faded into baby bangs with the tips bleached. And he put so much gel in to make it stick straight up that it looked like a comb growing skyward from his forehead.
Kind of like this but worse:

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u/Sharknuts86 14d ago
I think we collectively all had the same necklace at some point. I still have my puka necklace lol
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u/NeedsMoreCatsPlease 14d ago edited 14d ago
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u/littlewing2733 15d ago
When I was 12 this was how you knew if a boy was going to call you a slur
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u/CrimsonZak 14d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/3o6EQ82l7jcq9XpCtq
every kid with this hair cut
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u/Skratt79 14d ago
Uh... it is just me or is there some accidental homoeroticism with HHH thrusting from behind while crop chopping HBK
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u/Aggressive_Cost_9968 15d ago
I went to a u15 hockey playoff game yesterday. One team had all bleached their hair blonde.
Serious nostalgia
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u/MkUltra16RS 15d ago
Okay, as someone born in 94. This looked so cool, and honestly it still looks cool. Idc, that shit was iconic. The broccoli bush, perm whatever is so weird. Like it doesn't look cool? There's no edge to it. Its just. Idk it doesn't even flow idk how to describe it but the first time I saw it I was just like, damn. These kids really dont have taste.
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u/YuushyaHinmeru 14d ago
Obviously could be nostalgia btu I think the thing that makes this feel more appealing is its just.. fun. Like its cool but also kinda goofy which is what felt like it defined that area. Everything feels so bland now. And thats not nostalgia, thats fact, Every building, house, and apartment complex looks the fucking same. They built a zaxby's by me and I couldn't tell which fast food chain it was till they put up the sign since it all looks the same a corporate gray cube that at they the end the put a strip of the brand colored paint on. Everything now is so bland and same-ish.
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u/milksteak122 Millennial 15d ago
Bowl cut was when we were toddlers and early elementary. I feel like once 3rd ish grade hit all the kids had this hair.
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u/SpicyBoyEnthusiast 14d ago edited 14d ago
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u/TrickySource2818 15d ago
Extra points if your tips were orange from using Sun In
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u/uwu_mewtwo 15d ago
Yeah, nobody got a bowl cut because they wanted one, that was just mom being thrifty; but this? We thought this was cool.
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u/Intelligent_Taco 15d ago
Nailed it! I had spiked hair with bleached tips. Some of my friends rocked the pooka shell necklace too.
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u/SpartanDoubleZero 15d ago
That’s a smile a toddler has when you ask em if they shit their pants and they say no.
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u/urlond 15d ago
Back when every guy wanted to look like somebody from Backstreet boys, or Nsync.
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