Hair during swab summer (female)

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ilovefridays

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Hello!

Incoming class of 2030 swab here, and I am curious about hair during the summer. My hair is thick and curly/wavy. (2A to 3B). I use cream, mousse, and gel to maintain my curls, but understand that there won't be time for this during the summer. When straightened, my hair is past my waist. I have a couple of questions:

1. Chop it to a bob or leave it long? I've heard mixed messages but most females tell me not to chop my hair. If I leave it long, I will still cut it shorter than it currently is because this is a lot to take care of.

2. Will I be allowed to wear it in a high ponytail during the summer? Is a bun my only option for longer hairstyles? Will I be allowed to braid it?

3. How much time is allowed for getting ready and putting my hair into a style that matches regulations. I do have bobby pins, clips/barrettes, and hair ties that all match my hairstyle, as well as a wax stick that I like.

4. Is gel provided to swab during the summer?
 
I can’t speak to the SS aspect, but USCG regulations are for either one or two braids or ponytail (but both of those must not go past the middle of your shoulder blades) if you don’t want to do the bun. If you have really long hair, you’ll have to pretty much do a bun or cut some length off. And your pony will need to be low to put your cover on.

And, yes, agreed with above, make sure whatever hairstyle you do the easier/quicker the better.

Edited to add - yes Bobby pins are good just make sure they match your hair color. No larger barrettes (usually). But any hair ties/pins just need to match your hair color. And wax will definitely be your friend! Make sure that hair is down good. :)
 
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Find a gel you like and practice ahead of time. You can bring hair supplies with you (including gel) and parents can send you refills if needed. As others have mentioned, current regulations mean you can have a bun, a ponytail, or 1-2 braids. The ponytail or braids can't end below your shoulder blades and you have to be able to wear your cap. Your hair is also expected to be neat without strands hanging down in your face. Do your best with bobby pins and small clips. Every female with longer hair is going to get yelled at more than once during the summer because it is just about impossible for your hair to remain neat throughout all the physical activity. You will often be taking multiple 5-minute showers throughout swab summer so figure out a style that works for you.
 
Time for my annual pro tips on buns, hairpins, etc.

Bunheads by Capezio, the dancewear company. Available on their website and Amazon. Extra large, available in a couple of different hair tones. Know how to put them in for max hold. You start them at a 90-degree angle to the head, angle down slightly and then up into the bun to lock in. There are demos online. Note the slight bend in the pin - that supplies the tension to hold the bun. There are non-Capezio versions of “ballet bun pins,” just shop carefully.

Bun types and hacks for military buns. Dive into YouTube and other sites. Military women have been putting all textures and lengths of hair up for wear with uniform covers for decades now.

Speaking as someone who had long hair (kept it mid-back) for my entire Navy career, you will want it at a length that goes up easily and completely in the least amount of time, so taking some length off to start out might be useful while you have the least amount of time in the indoc months. And you have to manage pony length. Then you can grow it out a bit more as you learn to manage your time and your military grooming efficiently.

I always liked product that could be used on both dry and damp hair, to get all the runaways, curls, frizzies under control for a polished look.

IMG_7375.jpeg
 
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My DD said to be sure to distinguish between swab summer hair advice and regular school year because the expectations are different. For SS, leave it long enough to get it into a bun in 10 seconds (number explicitly given) and bring your own gel. Gel is not provided, but you may get to purchase some at the exchange approximately 2 weeks in if you didn’t bring or are running out.

Congrats on your appointment!
 
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On the teams meeting last night a hair question was asked - 2 female cadets suggested that swabs shouldn’t chop their hair unless they really, really wanted to, but practice a quick bun instead.
 
happyhiker said:
On the teams meeting last night a hair question was asked - 2 female cadets suggested that swabs shouldn’t chop their hair unless they really, really wanted to, but practice a quick bun instead.
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Also speed showering, speed washing, speed-everything-personal. You will have minutes, not hours.
 
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Capt MJ said:
Also sped showering, speed washing, speed-everything-personal. You will have minutes, not hours.
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I'm assuming it's the same for meals? One of my son's concerns is not having enough time to eat (he's a somewhat slow eater), and getting enough to eat (usually has 2 servings at dinner)...He's pretty strict about what he eats and when. He's very disciplined about it for health and fitness reasons. He's worried about what affect swab summer could have on his nutrition.
 
When you take a shower, the time they may sometimes give you to change out of your clothes, stow them, gather your shower caddy, get to the head (it may be far), take a shower, dry off, get dressed, and stow your things may seem impossible. There may times you are tempted (and actually do) just wet your hair for the appearance of a shower. If you do that and are then asked if you actually took a shower, don’t lie about.
Never lie about anything.
 
3032Mom said:
I'm assuming it's the same for meals? One of my son's concerns is not having enough time to eat (he's a somewhat slow eater), and getting enough to eat (usually has 2 servings at dinner)...He's pretty strict about what he eats and when. He's very disciplined about it for health and fitness reasons. He's worried about what affect swab summer could have on his nutrition.
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Swab Summer, or any military basic training, isn’t designed to optimize nutrition timing, second helpings, or personal eating routines. It’s designed to introduce stress, structure, and time pressure. Meals are part of that. He will be fine.
 
3032Mom said:
I'm assuming it's the same for meals? One of my son's concerns is not having enough time to eat (he's a somewhat slow eater), and getting enough to eat (usually has 2 servings at dinner)...He's pretty strict about what he eats and when. He's very disciplined about it for health and fitness reasons. He's worried about what affect swab summer could have on his nutrition.
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Once he gets there, he will either adapt or not, and he will be thinking about other things.

The indoc summer is not the first year. The first year is not like the other 3 years. And it is different from what comes after.

He will figure it out.

Meanwhile, practice fast showering and shaving!
 
3032Mom said:
I'm assuming it's the same for meals? One of my son's concerns is not having enough time to eat (he's a somewhat slow eater), and getting enough to eat (usually has 2 servings at dinner)...He's pretty strict about what he eats and when. He's very disciplined about it for health and fitness reasons. He's worried about what affect swab summer could have on his nutrition.
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Everything is a relatively fast pace, so you certainly don’t want to dilly dally. However, About 2 years ago they changed meal time significantly to where you no longer have to square when you eat, and you’re allowed to actually glance down at your food.
This was entirely about making sure the swabs got enough to eat at meal time. I guess the 150 years of swabs prior to that didn’t!

I can appreciate your son’s good eating habits, but he’ll have to accept the fact that at least for summer, all of that will go out the window. They’ll get 3 squares a day whenever they are taken to the wardroom. They’ll have snacks at different times too. Sometimes the cadre will give them snacks, or other times they’ll be able to eat snacks from their care packages you send. Point is, he’ll have plenty of opportunity to eat, but exactly when and what won’t be in his terms. During swab summer, NOTHING is on your own terms.

Also know that the most fit, muscular kids will likely lose weight and muscle over the summer. The kids who are maybe not in as good of shape will benefit more. Swab summer PT is what it is. It’s 95% basic calisthenics and running. Very little time in the weight room strength training. So again, kids who lift heavy every day will backslide a little.
It’s only 7 weeks!
 
27BearDad said:
However, About 2 years ago they changed meal time significantly to where you no longer have to square when you eat, and you’re allowed to actually glance down at your food.
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...ooh, thanks for that - I forgot, that was another thing he was worried about.

Yeah, I think for 7 weeks he'd be fine...but that's not something he wants to hear from his mother, haha.
 
He's not there's for his health. This summer he's there to become part of the Coast Guard. For many that will involve getting in better shape, but for some that will mean not lifting, running, swimming as much and they'll regress to the mean. It's all about the shipmates, the group, the company, and that will be so crystal clear that he won't even miss the gym.

They say that your time at the academy is in three equal parts: swab summer, your first academic year, and the other three years. The shock and awe are intentional to help break free from the old life and get into USCG life immediately. He'll figure it out and reintroduce health when the time is right.
 
3032Mom said:
I'm assuming it's the same for meals? One of my son's concerns is not having enough time to eat (he's a somewhat slow eater), and getting enough to eat (usually has 2 servings at dinner)...He's pretty strict about what he eats and when. He's very disciplined about it for health and fitness reasons. He's worried about what affect swab summer could have on his nutrition.
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Have him bulk up before SS. My son lost 20 lbs during SS. He will not have time to be picky or strict. It’s survival mode. Send him healthy snacks in a care package. My son requested protein bars, beef jerky, and peanut butter tubes. He did CGAS the summer before so so knew what to expect and that he would most likely loose weight again. Bulking before helped the 2nd time around.

Best of luck.
 
My DD is at USNA and during PLEBE summer, they had to have hair in a bun. She said it was constantly wet, so less hair was easier to manage. Many of the women preferred hair they could pull back as opposed to the bob because it stayed out of the way better.
 
HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend NOT chopping it to a bob. I have pretty curly hair and I did that for the same reason. It got in my face a lot and I was told I had to have it pulled back. Lo and behold it was too short to really put back in a ponytail, and even if it wasn't I had NO idea how. It was the biggest problem of phase one because I was constantly battling it and getting in trouble for it. And especially with curlier hair there's a large chance you'll be in the same situation. I'd highly recommend just cutting it a bit shorter for a good bun length- just don't do the bob unless you're SUPER confident about it.
 
As others have said, be able to put up your hair in a few seconds. Ask around for advice and methods of doing that. Off the record, highly recommend if you don't feel like it's secure taking a minute during math class or a longer head and water break to redo it. Bring your own gel and supplies. I've found recently that the more solid gel sticks really well but I'm not sure how good it'll be for fast application. Sometimes cadre will leave gel in the female heads, but don't rely on it. I know some plan on doing that, others don't. Depends on the company and if it's something they're thinking about. Hairspray is good too. If you have extra and your cadre didn't leave some in the head it's definitely a kind thing to do to put together a communal gel spot for head and water breaks.
 
3032Mom said:
I'm assuming it's the same for meals? One of my son's concerns is not having enough time to eat (he's a somewhat slow eater), and getting enough to eat (usually has 2 servings at dinner)...He's pretty strict about what he eats and when. He's very disciplined about it for health and fitness reasons. He's worried about what affect swab summer could have on his nutrition.
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I know others have responded to this, but figured it wouldn't hurt to give a current cadet perspective.

As others have said, the point of Swab Summer is to shape you into a Coast Guardsman. They'll make sure you're getting the nutrition you need to keep pumping. For the first while it'll be pretty hard to eat, but you get better at it over time. There's measures that have/are being taken to ensure people are eating properly to make sure the clinic isn't overwhelmed. My year they started securing the yelling for the first few minutes of every meal so that people could eat without constantly getting the interruptions. Not sure if they'll keep that, I've heard rumors from other batt staffs on some other things they may be changing, but I won't jump on that. Just know that cadre, batt staff, and the clinic staff are all wanting to make sure the swabs are still fit and ready to complete training.

That said, he will be in survival mode. He'll have to eat what's given to him, but if the meal that day is particularly bad (it happens), you can always make a peanut butter/jelly/honey sandwich. He'll get protein bars at night. He'll have lots of opportunities to eat snacks at trainings and the like. I'm gonna be completely honest, I barely ate the first week and I was barely hungry. Too much adrenaline. That'll happen to a lot of people. There's a lot of common side effects we all laugh about after the fact. But he will be fine.

If nothing else, I want you to remember there's 1,070 of us here. 1,070 of that have all been through the same Swab Summer, that have all come out the other side. These are people of all different shapes, sizes, skills, and personalities. It'll suck, it'll hurt, he'll lose weight he doesn't want to lose, he'll lose bulk he doesn't want to lose. But so have 1,070 of us. It's a part of the price you pay by coming here, and as soon as the seven weeks are over he'll never have to think about it again.

The best thing you could tell him right now is that yes it'll suck, but he'll get through it. He's just gotta buckle down and by into the program.
 
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