Tammy Braband spends an hour fixing her hair every morning. She also changes its color and its length more in a month than most people probably do in a year.

"I'm red, then I'm blond, then I'm red again," she said. "I'm always putting in extensions and coloring. … You never quite know."

Braband happens to be in the cosmetology business - she works for the salon supply business Peel's Salon Services - so her chameleon hair comes with the territory. But she's not exactly unusual in the amount of time and energy she puts into her appearance.

On average, women spend about 45 minutes a day on grooming habits, which includes washing, dressing and hair care. Men spend about 30 minutes, according to the American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With the advent of a seemingly endless supply of hair products, Americans - especially American women - have taken control of their locks.

If you have curly hair, no worries; with a flat iron and some time, it can be straight.

If your hair is straight, break out the curling iron or get a perm.

Need a little shimmer, try this product.

Want a little kink to the hair, well, there's a tool for that, too.

Amber Dierkson, manager of Peel's, thinks people are willing to spend more time pampering than ever before, especially when it comes to their hair. "We need that for ourselves. It makes us feel better about ourselves," she said.

Dierkson spends about 30 to 45 minutes each day fixing her hair. She doesn't define that as a particularly high-maintenance routine.

"I don't consider it high maintenance. I consider it just a daily thing," she said.

Even with a 2-month-old baby, Amanda Bugenhagen still puts in about 30 to 40 minutes to fix her hair each day. She starts by blow drying and then back-combs the top. After that, she flat irons. "I use a lot of hair spray," she said.

She admits that her fiance sometimes wonders what takes her so long, but she doesn't think of her hair as overly cumbersome. "It's just really easy. I don't have to do a whole lot with it," she said.

While white women spend plenty of time on their hair, black women have even more time challenges, says Denise Crayton, owner of Covenant Creations in Rapid City.

"They have to relax their hair every six to eight weeks," she said. "We straighten and you guys curl."

Even after a chemical relaxer, a lot of black women choose to use a flat iron as well, Crayton said.

Many black women who choose not to use relaxer often opt to have their hair braided. But Crayton said that comes with a time element as well. Depending on the hair length, the braiding can take as many as 10 hours.

Delorise Davis of Rapid City had her hair in braids for more than seven years. "I liked the way they looked, even though the process took a long time," she said. Her longest braiding marathon: 14 hours, broken into segments.

After her sisters encouraged her to give the braids a break, Davis changed looks in October. She now gets her hair relaxed every six to eight weeks and is slowly learning how to style the new look.

On a daily basis, her regime remains fairly short at 20 minutes. But once a week, her routine includes washing, treating and drying her hair. "That full-blown process takes about two hours. That's the part that's challenging to me."

Still, she's happy with the result. Her sisters are, too. "They love it."

For women who think 10 minutes is too much time to spend on hair, the future may be bleak. That's because the "big," high-maintenance hair of the '80s is coming back.

Koti Thurman of Headlines Academy cosmetology school said the back-combed look is making a healthy comeback. Even the permanent is rearing its head again.

Thurman, however, wants to assure low-maintenance lovers that they need not worry. The increase in tools and hair products has made it easier to get the high-maintenance look without the high-maintenance timetable. So even if you want it big, you can still get it done in a shorter time frame, she said.

"A lot of us girls, it looks amazing, but it doesn't take long," Thurman said. "All the products that we can use; it's pretty simple to throw up and go."

Contact Lynn Taylor Rick at lynn.taylorrick@rapidcityjournal.com or 394-8414.