Text: “My nan has always told me you should cut your hair during the waxing moon, when it’s growing bigger, so your hair would grow thicker and faster. But never cut it during a waning moon, or it’d grow back slow and thin. Same thing with nails. My nan wouldn’t get her nails done or anything; she would just wait to trim them herself and always looked up at the moon first.”

Context: My informant is from England and told me that her grandmother grew up in a farming village that often relied on the moon to guide the planting and personal care. Her nan treated it like common sense, and a hairdresser in the town also told her this once. 

Interpretation: This is an example of sympathetic magic. Cutting hair during a waxing moon (that looks like it’s growing) symbolically encourages growth; meanwhile, cutting during a waning moon (that looks like it’s shrinking) is seen as limiting or weakening. It reflects an ancient human instinct to see natural cycles like the moon as connected to our bodies and health. This also reflected a transmission of knowledge, passed from grandmother to granddaughter, rooted in domestic spaces and body care.