bad hair day

American  

noun

1. a disagreeable or unpleasant day, especially one during which one feels unattractive.

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bad hair day British  

noun

1. a day on which one's hair is untidy and unmanageable

2. a day of mishaps and general irritation

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bad hair day Idioms  

1. A day when one's appearance, especially one's hair, does not look attractive. For example, What have I done to upset Martha? Nothing, she's just having a bad hair day. Originating as a humorous statement, this term was soon broadened to mean simply having a bad day, that is, a day when everything seems to go wrong. [Late 1980s] Also see not one's day.

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Etymology

Origin of bad hair day

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

We miss the note, we have the bad hair day.

From Salon

Paul wanted his audience to think of “anxiety” as the mild sense of dread you might experience when contemplating going to work on a bad hair day.

From Los Angeles Times

And don't be defeated by a bad hair day!

From BBC

He would worry that they weren’t having a good time, just as he would worry that if he was “having a bad hair day” it meant that he “had a brain tumor.”

From Salon

The next morning, Ms. Bastardo selected a song to use as a soundtrack for the six-second clip, a catchy tune about a bad hair day that had started gaining traction on TikTok.

From New York Times