Haircut 100
I have a friend in Austria, a highly intelligent, articulate woman, well travelled and with a sophisticated, educated mind. Despite all this, she will only get her hair cut at certain phases of the moon. This isn't some new-age hippy bollocks; firstly she's no hippy, and secondly she tells me that "everybody in Austria knows that it's true".

Apparently it derives from the ancient belief that crops grow better if planted at certain times of the lunar month. I guess that that's just about credible, but I can't see that hair would behave like a seed!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Wed 1 May 2013, 14:02, 6 replies)

Yes I've heard this - that a lot of pagan traditions and stuff is actually unknowingly very sensible farming.
Planting your potatoes at midnight on the full moon means the soil will actually be at a time when the nutrients are highest/the potato is most receptive (or whatever - I'm no scientologist, but you get the idea).

Hair is dead though, innit? Like fingernails and Peter Mandleson's conscience.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 1 May 2013, 14:13, closed)

The opposite would make better sense.
You'd want your hair to grow slower, then you wouldn't need to keep going to the hairdressers.
(username failed moderation, Wed 1 May 2013, 14:29, closed)

I've heard bumsex is popular in Austria to preserve virginity before marriage

( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 1 May 2013, 14:54, closed)

your friend is not as intelligent as you think

(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Wed 1 May 2013, 15:12, closed)

It's like the tides apparently
The gravitational pull of the moon gently pulls at your hair follicles more when it's waxing than waning. Hence it makes more sense to have a haircut when it's a new moon then you have a couple of weeks of enhanced regrowth.
Simples!
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Wed 1 May 2013, 23:09, closed)

The phase of the moon doesn't affect it's gravitational pull...
...it's distance does. Which is independent of the phase.

Also the gravitational pull of the moon on a single hair is of the order of 2e-11 N. That's 1/300,000 of the force from Earth pulling it back down.

So amazingly, it's bollocks.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 2 May 2013, 11:03, closed)