The first known published description of Donald Trump’s hair, as an entity that deserved its own description, was mild.
“His sandy hair is probably a bit long by standards of the corporate world,” read a 1984 newspaper profile of the then-38-year-old mogul.
“With the sides slicked back just a bit.” Three decades later, describing the headstuff of the President has been elevated to an art form.
Is it swirled or swooped?
Animal or vegetable? (Mineral?)
Burnt sienna or orange Creamsicle?
A website published an extensive investigation asserting that the whole concoction might actually be a $60 000 (about R720 000) weave.
Here, in the most comprehensive and highly scientific endeavour of its kind, culled from 30 years of news articles, we present the top 100 unique descriptors of the Trump mane, written by journalists or pontificators who secretly fancy themselves, poets:
1. The complex superstructure that is Donald Trump’s hair
2. A masterpiece whose guiding principle is a heroic desire to completely conceal the forehead
3. A thin sheath of perfectly placed strands
4. An abandoned nest
5.A hairspray labyrinth
6. It appears to be a comb-over, but, incredibly, it doesn’t arrive from any direction. You cannot stare at The Donald’s hair very long. It’s like staring into the sun.
7. A decomposing ear of corn
8. A corn husk doll cursed by a witch
9. An ambitious corn dog that escaped from the concession stand at a rural Alabama fairground, stole an unattended wig, hopped a freight train to Atlantic City and never looked back
10. The furrowed wake that a speedboat would leave on a lake of orange sherbet
11. A Mobius combover
12. (His hair) resembles the behaviour of alpha chimps who, as primatologist Frans de Waal reports in ‘Chimpanzee Politics,’ make their hair stand on end in order to look large.
13. The male equivalent of a push-up bra
14. An upside-down Twitter logo
15. A mullet that died in some horrific accident
16. Carefully crafted helmet of fine gossamer, woven into a precise immovable template
17. Golden fleece
18. Dyed the nascent yellow of a baby chick
19. A hue best described as ‘Cigarette-stained teeth blond’
20. The patriotic shade of amber waves of grain
21. A ginger forest
22. Orange fizz
23. Burnt Cheetos auburn
24. The same unplaceable tinge as the marble in the Trump Tower lobby
25. The ginger flank of Trump’s hair was plastered firm down at the sides, and a side parting had emerged. The back was long, straggly, and running free.
26. Orange and matted on the sides, and now white/silver, wispy, swept back, defying the laws of physics and practicality on top
32. This multidirectional comb-over is so complex that even engineers marvel at its structure. Resistant to wind and rain, NASA has looked at it as a possible Shuttle Shield.
33. The roll of sod that never looked quite right in your yard
45. It is a fluorish. On top, it flows forward to the forehead where it does a fine, serpentine U-turn, while along the sides it sweeps over the tops of his ears like rows of cirrus clouds.
46. (It) appears to be courting the women’s vote, combed on the left side of his head in the shape of a vagina.
70. A dishrag that on closer inspection is alive with maggots
71. It may look like a dead gerbil, but it actually advertises both his vanity (hence, his humanness) and his imperviousness to ridicule. It would qualify as the most original Washington haircut since Ronald Reagan went prematurely orange.
90. A glowing orb presiding over the night’s spectacle
91. A creation consisting of two different parts, like an Ikea shelf
92. A comb-over from hell
93. The new wave of comb-overs, (which) drops the lie and the shame and just asks onlookers to marvel at the scale, vision and depth of the comb-over you’ve just created.
94. The grotesque, exhibitionist, peacocky mutation that adorns his skull