Croydon facelift

plural Croydon facelifts

1. BritishderogatoryslangA women's hairstyle, associated with lower social classes, in which the hair is pulled tightly back from the face and fastened behind the head, thus pulling the features up and back and giving an effect similar to a facelift.

   Everyone stopped drinking to have a look. A girl with a Croydon facelift hairdo and a sequinned tank top began hyperventilating noisily.

   2013, e.c. saunders, Kat Among the Pigeons: A Kat Shakespeare Mystery, page 81

   2 more examples

   We climb in, and I plaster my Little House on the Prairie-style cloth hat over my hair so the greasy strands won't get yanked back into a Croydon facelift as I pull on my helmet.

   2010, Charlotte Madison, Dressed to Kill, unnumbered page

   All of which could explain why, when I had my hair styled in a tight ponytail for the shoot accompanying this feature, most people who saw me thought I looked "unapproachable" (which might simply be a polite way of saying: "You looked like you had a rattail and a Croydon facelift").

   2013 July 28, Elizabeth Day, The Observer