I was a teenager when I started colouring my hair. It started innocently enough, with the discovery of Sun In. Remember Sun In? A very large swath of the population ended up with ridiculously orange hair because of it. You could pick people out of the crowd who’d experimented with this leave-in hair lightener by the brassy shine that emanated from their heads. Sun In worked for me, for the most part. I worked at a summer camp and was outside all day, every day, but I used too much of the stuff and was not very strategic about where I was spritzing. The result was that the entire top layer of my hair was blonde but everything underneath was brown, resulting in a layer-cake hair colouring effect. (It occurred to me that I may have been channeling the hair stylings of Sun Tan Tuesday Taylor, my 1970s era Barbie doll. The top of her scalp could turn so that she could have brown hair OR blonde hair.)
At some point, I realized that a brown underlayer of hair was rather uncool so I started colouring it blonde (top layer, AND bottom layer). I did it myself with drug store hair dye. I did this for years, but got fed up with monocoloured hair and started on the path of Finding the Right Hairdresser. This was fraught with peril and I distinctly remembering cutting my own hair after a particularly disastrous visit to a hair salon during my university years. But I digress.
I am currently a client at Mint Hair Studio and I see Kristen, the owner. I like her a lot and she has a good eye for colour. As for my natural colour, I can only describe that as Flat Mouse. It is rather lifeless on its own. A big part of me feels guilty that I’m unhappy with the natural state of things in the hair department. We tell the girls to accept themselves for who they are all of the time, so why do I find it so hard to do the same? Gah.
When I go in for a hair colouring I always waver on the blonde v. brunette scenario, but for the most part, I have been sticking with blonde shades with only the occasional foray into The World of Brown. The last time I was there I decided to revisit that world and opted for a darker shade of brown. This was a couple of months ago. It’s lightened up considerably since that time, with the lighter parts now starting to show through.
Well, I’m now at the point where I have to start making some decisions. I am trying to avoid what normally happens at this stage in my hair colouring cycle:
(1) I decide to grow it out.
(2) A couple of inches of natural hair later I hit a breaking point which leads to
(3) My running to the hairdresser for a fixer upper.
Rinse. Annnnd. Repeat.
Personally, I think I look better as a blonde. Since I’ve played on both sides I can I honestly say that I have more fun as a blonde.
Also, I would like to let the record show that I don’t colour my hair because I’m trying to hide any grey. I am actually pretty excited about the grey. I mean seriously, my hair is beginning to grow THE COLOUR OF A PRECIOUS METAL. Silver strands! On my head! Gold would be nice but I’ll totally accept silver. The problem is I only have a dozen or so threads of silver and it’s a slow process. I might just speed it along and incorporate some grey into my blonde next time. What do you think?
