Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Trifecta of Crap (Part Three)

Hair Disaster

It may come as a shock to you that I dye my hair by myself at home using a kit I purchase at Target every six weeks or so. I have been doing it off and on for about 15 years. I actually try to get it only one or two shades lighter than my true blonde color and give it some highlights. I have a good friend who is horrified by the fact that I color my own hair and didn’t believe me when I told her the first time. I think she is just horrified because she likes my hair and pays $350 at Vidal Sasson to have hers done every two months.

Most of the time, I have very good luck with coloring my hair by myself. I have never had an outright disaster, like green or orange hair, although one time my hair did get a lot blonder than I ever wanted. Since that time, I am careful to purchase a mid-range blonde rather than anything lighter to save myself from the bleached look.

So, this weekend, I purchased some hair color - a nice medium ash blonde, the box said. My ass, nice medium ash blonde. On Sunday, during the kids’ naptime, I went into the bathroom and mixed the solution and put it on my hair. Because the dye has to sit for 20-25 minutes, I decided to make good use of my time by investigating and unclogging the bathroom sink, which had been draining slowly for the last two weeks. For the whole 20 minutes, I was under the sink with my hair covered with goop fixing the sink so I did not have occasion to glance in the mirror.

The timer went off and I stood up and looked in the mirror. And screamed, "Holy Shit!" The dye covering my hair was black and purple. Now, I know that the actual color of hair dye has little effect on the ultimate shade your hair becomes, so I wasn’t so worried. I was a little worried because I thought it was odd for blonde dye to be black, but whatever.

I stepped into the shower and rinsed out the dye and conditioned it. I looked at the color again when I got out. Kinda dark, I thought, but it still wasn’t dry, so I thought it would lighten when I dried it. Nope. Granted, it wasn’t black, it is more of a dark, dark dishwater blonde, but it is disgusting. It almost has no color, it is that boring. It may be close to light brown, but with no highlights or anything pretty about it. I kept shaking it to see if the color would improve with different light. Nope. It was horrible. Very, very, very bad. All I could do was stare at myself in the mirror and fight back tears.

I am not terribly vain about my hair, or so I thought, but I really liked the color of it and I like being a blonde . . . a real blonde, not a dishwater blonde. I learned while staring at myself in the mirror on Sunday that a lot of my physical identity is tied to the color of my hair. I really don’t know the person in the mirror anymore and I feel incredibly self-conscious about my hair.

I tried various fixes for it all night Sunday and even considered calling in sick to work on Monday to have it professionally fixed. In the end, I decided that would be a waste of time and money. It’s not that bad, after all, right? And chemically fixing it may have even worse consequences. So, I purchased some blonde highlighting shampoo and conditioner and will try to dye it again in a few weeks. I will only be the color of a puddle for a few weeks, right?

It is now a few days later, I guess I am used to it (by that I mean I don't want to cry every time I look in a mirror) but I still hate it. So far, the only person who has really noticed is my daughter who said, "Your hair not yellow anymore, Mama?" No one at work said anything, but they are all men who might not notice if I was bald. Or maybe they are just too scared to say anything about it. I probably have a really evil look on my face anyway. I am sure my dad will notice when they come next weekend, but other than that, the tidal wave of horrified expressions I was expecting hasn’t really happened.

I am sure I should just stop obsessing about my hair. After all, there are far worse things in the world. But I really didn’t need this crap on top of everything else this week. Seriously . . . couldn’t just one thing go right this week?

5 comments:

Laura Petelle said...

I didn't think I was vain about my hair either, until I cut it off for Locks of Love. Hubby thought it was cute; I kept looking in the mirror and bawling.

Katie said...

I'm sorry about the American Gothic comment. I meant for it to be funny.

I'm sorry you had a bad week. It's this time of year. Things will pick up soon!

Anonymous said...

Ms. PH,
I could help you with that. I am a hairstylist who is very reasonable and also very experienced in color. That whole idea of you trying to fix it yourself is going to give me nightmares tonight, LOL.
BTW, I'm really sorry you're having such a bad week.

Anonymous said...

I wasn't smart enough to realize that my name wouldn't be a link like everyone else since I'm not a blogger. I'm on PDC if you want to look me up.

Anonymous said...

Bad things always come in Three... so things will hopefully look brighter from here on in.