In case you did not get the memo, it has been really cold this week. How cold? Lake Michigan froze over, fleece leggings proved no match for the windchill, and people in Chicago had to revert to setting train tracks on fire so they wouldn’t ice up (which, as it turns out, is business as usual?). Elsewhere in the country, while you snuggled up under seven blankets and plotted how to never leave your apartment, intrepid teenagers were making their hair stand straight up, like icicles.
On January 30, Taylor Scallon, who lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, uploaded a video of her cryotherapy-ed hair. The look defied convention and gravity, yet was reminiscent of Marge Simpson, the bouffants Chanel sent down its spring 2019 couture runway, and a Troll doll. (Weather in Iowa reached record lows on Wednesday; the National Weather Service reported a low of -25 degrees Fahrenheit in Waterloo, which is northwest of Cedar Rapids.)
The 17-year-old told the Cut that the idea came to her while at home from school on Wednesday. “I am a swimmer and a lifeguard so my hair has been frozen many times before while walking to my car,” she explained. To make her hair stand straight up, she wet it, bundled up, and stepped outside for three to four minutes with her head upside down. (Experts caution people in areas with severe windchill to avoid being outside longer than five minutes at a time, as frostbite and hypothermia can set in.)
It felt, she said, “like there were icicles on my head.”
Since she posted the video, it has amassed over 18,000 retweets and 58,000 likes. ” I was never expecting the video to go viral,” Taylor admits. “I didn’t even think it was funny enough to put on Twitter, but my friends thought otherwise and told me to post it. Even within 24 hours, it was crazy to see how fast the numbers went up.” Her friends, she added, think her newfound fame is “hilarious.”
As for her defrosting, Taylor says she’s looking forward to the weekend; according to the Des Moines Register, parts of the state will see a 70-degree jump in temperature by Sunday.
