She’s having another bad frizz day…
Hardison: It rains in London.
Sophie: No, London has fog. Fog is mysterious. Rain just ruins my hair.
— Leverage
When it's humid and there's lots of moisture in the air, water molecules enter the hair strand and bind to the proteins inside. It happens on a hot day, a rainy season, or in a humid area. And poof! The hair gets frizzy. Even if your hair is straight or just wavy, the humidity causes it to become poofy. Sometimes, it's not just humidity that causes the frizz; it is caused by any kind of heat exposure whatsoever. It’s often Played for Laughs.
Truth in Television, especially for those with naturally thick or curly hair.
Sub-Trope of Funny Afro and Bad Hair Day.
If a character has frizzy hair to go with their offbeat personality, that’s Quirky Curls. Compare Wild Hair, Messy Hair, Fluffy Dry Cat, and Stubborn Hair for other hair gag tropes. Might overlap with Unkempt Beauty if the character still looks good with frizzy hair, or Curly Hair Is Ugly if the frizzy hair is portrayed as negative. Contrast Beauty Is Never Tarnished and Wakeup Makeup.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In K-On!, Jun always wears her hair in pigtails during the day because the humidity wreaks havoc with it otherwise, to the point where she can give an accurate humidity report based just on how frizzed out her hair is when she wakes up. Two interchapter images show what her hair looks like both on a humid day (messy and frizzy) and a stormy day (full-on afro).
Comic Strips
- The Boondocks: One strip
sees Jazmine go through the process of straightening her curly hair, only for the humidity to cause it to fluff back up again.
- Garfield: In one comic strip, it happens on the title character in a hot day, which in every panel, his fur gets frizzer and frizzier, with the last two panels ending with John passing and saying "Whoo! Humid today", with Garfield responding "Tell me about it."
Fan Works
- Here Comes the New Boss: Initially, Dennis was annoyed by Emily's repeated complaints about the warmer weather and humidity making her hair constantly tangle up. Eventually, he realised that she needed something mundane to distract her from the aftermath of an Endbringer attack.
Films — Live-Action
- In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, even Hermione has trouble making the difficult potion in Slughorn's class, and gets frizzy hair from the steam over her cauldron, making her look even more out of sorts. Possibly doubles as a reference to her hair in the books, which is always frizzy.
- In the Deborah Kerr version of King Solomon's Mines, it is mentioned that Elizabeth Curtis, who has waist-length hair, suffers this problem due to the humidity of the African jungle, which is why she cuts it short later on.
Live-Action TV
- Friends: In the two-parter, "The One In Barbados", Monica's hair gets very fluffy because of the humidity in Barbados. Her hair is played for laughs throughout this episode and the next two, with Chandler feeling turned off by it and comparing it to Diana Ross.
- Leverage: In the first episode of Season 5, Sophie is protesting the team's move to the city of Portland, Oregon, citing the rain. Hardison states that London, from which Sophie hails, has rain. Sophie corrects him, saying that London has fog, which lends a mysterious atmosphere, while rain just ruins her hair.
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: In one episode, Maddie has a blind date, but unfortunately, her hair becomes frizzy due to humidity thanks to a Heat Wave.
Video Games
- The Elder Scrolls Online, one of the default hair styles is a frizzy style named "By Kyne, It's Humid!"
- The World Ends with You: A random scannable NPC gripes about her frizzy hair. It's not raining that day (it's never raining in this game), so she admits to herself that it's not as bad as it could be; apparently rain makes her hair so much frizzier that she calls it "turn[ing] into Afrodite".
Web Animation
- Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City: In "Beat the Heat", Strawberry prepares to leave her apartment to go on a picnic with her friends. The second she opens the door, she’s blasted with the intense summer heat, and her hair instantly poofs up from the humidity.
Webcomics
- The Chapel Chronicles: In one comic, Chapel’s hair becomes frizzy from the humid weather outside. This appears to happen regularly, as she says, “Oh, no, not again…” after her hair becomes frizzy.
Western Animation
- Amphibia: In "Return To Wartwood", the Plantars arrive back in Wartwood on a particularly humid day and Anne’s hair becomes frizzy as a result, enough for Polly to hide in even.
- Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!: In "Night of the Upsetting Shorts", the moment Velma steps out of the Mystery Machine into the Florida air, her straight, bobbed hair turns poofy, resembling that of the elderly women they are visiting. Invoked later in the episode when Shaggy wears a curly wig that makes him look like Velma from behind to surprise and trap the monster. Inexplicably, her hair is straight again by the time they unmask the monster, even though they are still in Florida.
- Discussed in Clifford the Big Red Dog In the episode "Stormy Weather", Cleo the poodle mentions to Clifford that with the impending hurricane, she has to get home before her hair gets frizzy. T-Bone follows up by saying he has to get home as well, and offhandedly mentions that it's not because he's worried his hair could get frizzy.
- Dave the Barbarian: "Here There Be Dragons" reveals that the hair of Dave's sister Candy is prone to this. The barbarian kingdom of Udrogoth is cursed to gradually boil, and in time, her hair goes from being straight and shoulder-length to poofy pigtails which extend from either side of her head. Interestingly, they're stiff, not limp.
- Harley Quinn (2019): In "It's A Swamp Thing", Poison Ivy complains she hates the humidity of swamps as it causes her hair to frizz up. Over the course of the episode, Ivy's hair gets noticeably more volume and frizz with each passing scene. Harley comments that the look suits her.
- My Gym Partner's a Monkey: In "An Inconvenient Goof", this saves the school from a flood when Adam's hair absorbs all the humidity. It does poof up into a Funny Afro.
- Peep and the Big Wide World: In "Who Stole the Big Wide World?", the forest becomes covered in fog and Chirp's feathers get all frizzy as a result. Quack even mistakes Chirp for a blob at first.
- Phineas and Ferb: In "Robot Rodeo", the humidity caused by Dr. Doofenshmirtz's fog machine causes Isabella's hair to become ridiculously frizzy. This leads to a gratuitous R&B dance sequence about Isabella's frizzy hair.
- The Simpsons
- Played with in "The Mansion Family", when Marge's signature Beehive Hairdo wilts when she joins Homer in the sauna at Mr. Burns' mansion.
- In "We're on the Road to D'ohwhere", Martin's hair poofs into an afro when Bart fills the school with a torrent of steam.
Nelson: Look, a new kid! Get him! (beats up Martin)
- In "Father Knows Worst", Marge discovers a secret sauna in the basement and tries it out, causing her beehive to poof into a giant afro.
- Total Drama: In the Action episode "3:10 to Crazytown," Leshawna's weave poofs into a giant Afro due to the humidity.
Heather: Your Afro is so big, it has its own gravity!Leshawna: Oh, I’ll give you gravity!
- In Trollz, the final episode has Ruby's hair become frizzed when she casts it into a volcano to save Amethyst from falling in.