Monday, August 10, 2009

THE STORY BEHIND THE BLONDE HAIR

It all came about early one morning while I was brushing my teeth. I turned off my sonicare toothbrush as soon as I saw them. Yup, there they were, right on the top of my head by my part, three silver hairs, proclaiming their existence by glistening in the sunlight pouring in on them from the window.

"Good God, no!" thought I. "I will not tolerate this!"

I quickly put on some clothes, jumped into my car and raced to Wal-Mart. I found the aisle with the hair coloring kits and chose a shade as similar to my natural color (medium to dark brown) as I could find, slinked to the checkout counter hoping nobody I knew would see me buying hair dye.

On the way home, I passed the local Sally's Beauty Supply store. The alpha beams entered my brain and I had one of those spontaneous, seemingly brilliant thoughts that always backfire.

"I need to strip my hair!"

For those who don't know, stripping is when you add a potent chemical to your hair that pulls out all the color. It's also known as bleaching. And, I now know, this is something that should always be left to the ptofessionals. Hind sight is truly twenty twenty, isn't it?

Fast forward about ten minutes and I am again in my bathroom reading directions on the bottle of the hair stripping chemicals. I can do this! I have such a false sense of confidence over something of which I know nothing! What total conceit!

Fast forward another hour. My hair is rinsed of the chemical and it has worked. Sort of. My hair is no longer medium brown. It is orange. Worse yet, it is neon orange.

Ohhh Nooo! What to do? I know! I need to go back to Sally's Beauty Supply store and get more stripping chemicals! I try to act blase while walking into the store, as if neon pumpkin orange hair is the most gorgeous color in the world. I pick up another bottle of the stuff I came for and wonder if I should get a gallon of it. Just in case. No, I'm going to be positive about this. I am going to strip my hair again and trust it will be perfect.

Again, we fast forward an hour. Mission accomplished. The orange is gone. I now have pink hair. Sweet. Real sweet, to be honest, because it now look like I've plastered flamingo pink cotton candy on my head.

As luck has it, my beautiful daughter, Shannon (the one with the perfectly colored hair, yep that's the one..) comes into the bathroom. She is doubled over laughing at me.

"Ma! Hahahahaa!! What were you thinking! Haahahahaahhaa!!"

Yeah, real funny, kid.

Shannon phones her stylist who happens to also be a color specialist. We make an appointment and I wait in tears until the time comes to get this mess fixed.

Jaime, the specialist, takes one look at my hair and I see the corners of her mouth twitch. She is trying not to laugh. The corners of my moiuth also twitch. I am trying not to cry.

Now, let me tell you, I had hair almost to my waist. I have always considered my hair to be my pride and joy, right behind...and just barely behind...having my children.

"You've totally ruined your hair." sez Jaime as she reaches for her scissors. The corners of my mouth are no longer merely twitching. I have now succumbed to a complete melt down and I am fully focused on not wailing out loud in the crowded salon.

As she crops my hair to my shoulders, she asks, "What color should we go?"

I need something to make me feel attractive again because I certainly did not feel attractive with pink hair.

"Blonde!" I say. "If I only have one life, let me live it asa blonde!!"

A couple hours later I walk out of the salon with shoulder length blonde hair.


Living life as a blonde for the last couple years has been a delightful experience. I have loved it! But I have recently become bored with it. So last week I went back to my natural color. My hair is mid way down my back and, since I faithfully see Jaime every six weeks, there asre no little wiry wilver hairs doing a mocking sun salutation on my head. I look like ME again!

And I am happy.

7 comments:

  1. Hey! Welcome to the world of blogging! I hope you meet lots of great people and have as much fun blogging as I have...a friend convinced me to start a blog in 2006. I thought..."what on earth will I talk about?". The rest is history. I've met so many amazing people and followed and been introduced to so many fantastic blogs. It's a really great experience.

    I will link your blog to mine this afternoon!

    I look forward to reading your thoughts and ideas and anything you explore here! Big hugs!

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  2. Thanks Candy! I'm so unsure of myself here. I really needed something to cheer me up..badly needed that. (Im going thru a mini depression.) I hope this helps me. I will try to link your blog here too. I need to figure out how.

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  3. Hi Beej,
    I love the look of your blog!
    The colors and logo [if that's the right name for yon lizard in red pump!]are perfect.

    Ahh, you've made me recall one day when I was 15 and bought a bottle of red hair dye. I slipped into the bathroom, past my unsuspecting mother and used the Whole Bottle. /sigh/
    Fortunately for me, it had NO effect at all. My hair was so dark, and mercifully unstripped, it did nothing. Good thing for me I didn't know about stripping hair first. I might not have lived to 16. heh

    Now it's gone silvery with some dark brown still in it. I unsuccessfully colored it once, about 25 years ago, and that was enough!

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  4. Great post, Beej! You're a wonderful and entertaining writer. But why would you need to strip your hair to dye the gray brown? I thought stripping it was only if you wanted to make all your hair much lighter.

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  6. pontalba, thanks for the compliments! I like the color scheme too.

    Yulia, thanks for posting! I thought if I didnt strip it, it would not color evenly. Dumb dumb dumb, I know.

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  7. Thanks for answering. I love the conversation it's started on CR about when people got their first gray hairs and what their internal image of themselves is. It's been so fun to have everyone upen up!

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Go ahead, you can do it! Just whistle if you want me. You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and BLOW....

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