My Hair Crush – Jessica Day

The bangs! The shine! The lengths! As Layered Online’s Amanda binges classic episodes of New Girl during lockdown, she explains why she has ‘heart eyes’ for Jessica Day’s hair

“Who’s that girl….? It’s JESS!”

Since lockdown, I’ve been going back to favourite shows to binge, the equivalent of comfort food for my eyes and brain. And to me, New Girl is like a bowl of creamy, sustaining macaroni cheese. And anyone who has watched American comedy New Girl will know the refrain that’s warbled over the opening credits by star Zooey Deschanel and it’s important that this is where I start when talking about my hair crush. Because I want to be very specific – my hair crush is NOT Zooey Deschanel (oh no – that blonde mess in Elf instantly disqualifies her). My hair crush is very much the ‘adorkable’ Jessica Day, elementary school teacher and grown-up Manic Pixie Dream Girl that gets herself into hilarious scrapes on a weekly basis with her all-male roommates in a downtown LA loft. And I feel her Hair Crush factor has so strong a pull that her BFF on the show, stunning model and all-round badass Cece, is pulled into her hair orbit too, rocking the same principles on her head because it just looks so damn good.

But what are those principles? Let’s break them down. First up – she bangs! I mean, she has bangs that bang! Jessica Day is ALL about the full on, heavy, eyebrow brushing fringe that pulls your focus immediately to those wide baby blue eyes (add heavy frame large glasses for full effect). Let’s be honest, that’s a look that, under no social distancing challenges, necessitates a fortnightly trip to your local salon just to be able to safely avoid walking into lamp posts on the regular. But you get the impression that Jess would cutely clip away those fringe ends using her nail scissors and then merrily skip along to her next comic caper. The little minx!

Next up, the colour. We’re talking seriously brunette and high gloss here, like an espresso that has made sweet, sweet love to a bourbon biscuit, and then its progeny has decided to bathe in a vat of Shellac top coat. This is shiny, vinyl-esque colour, high impact, suggesting health and vitality. It’s also suuuuuuper thick and bouncy, and I can’t help but think that on set, Ms Deschanel had the help of some artfully placed clip-in extensions… but please don’t ruin the illusion for me, reality!

Finally, the length. Just look at it – boob-long and luscious, like she’s eaten a pack of Viviscal supplements with every hot meal for the past three years. It means she can playfully ponytail the shizzle out of it (large ribbons always work well here) and because that fringe is in place, the face frame remains and the ponytail can swing free like a happy Labrador’s tail.

And I think that’s why I love it so much – it suggests happiness to me. This is happy hair. Jess is always smiley and cute and giggly and fun and warm and, well, totally adorkable. Perhaps if I had this hair, I would be THIS happy too!

Well, I kinda had this hair, once. But my fringe parted in the middle and the shade drained the colour from my 001 face. It wasn’t thick enough to look so luscious at that length, and the day this pic was taken (see left), I had it all cut off and donated it to charity. A decision I regretted instantly mind you (not the charity part though). Maybe if I had tried a little harder, got a few clip-ins to bulk it out, we could have made it work, that hair and I. Perhaps I could have been adorkable. But it wasn’t to be.

And now Jessica Day is gone, too… well, new episodes anyway. So I return to my favourites, safe and warm in the embrace of Nick, Schmidt and Winston, trying to figure out the rules to the drinking game True American. We’ll always have that fringe, Jess. Don’t go changing.