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Elijah,
Take a look at how some of the other artists tackle hair to get some ideas. Paint is all an illusion anyway: an effort to make two dimensions mimic three. So there are conventions that people follow. It sometimes helps to ignore the specific item that you're painting and just look at general shapes and colors. This quote from Monet has always been really helpful for me: "When you go out to paint, try to forgot what objects you have before you ... merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you." Otherwise expectations and prior experience take over and you end up painting what you think is there rather than what's really there.
Re: supplies, I live in a very rural area and get all my supplies through mail order. Some of the companies like Jerry's or Cheap Joe's have very good prices, especially if you hit their sales. Also, a lot of oil painters use very limited palettes (I'm not one of them, but that's because I was taught by someone who used a lot of specialized colors), so you may not need many tubes to start experimenting. On the other hand, people do paint marvelous portraits and tackle skin tones and gradations beautifully with acrylics; I'm not one of those either!
Lots of luck and keep painting!
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