Sunday 3 August 2008

Hair Today...

I've tried to put up with the dark ash blonde colour. I've tried to offer it up too. But it's really ghastly.

Fr. Tim has tried to be kind. I suspect he saw my cri de coeur on the blog and decided that it was more than his life was worth to comment. But if the colour was really ok, I'm sure he'd have said so. Instead, when I mentioned my dissatisfaction with the result of my last fiasco, he gave the priestly equivalent of a politician's "no comment!" - namely, a shrug of the shoulders and "I really wouldn't know about that sort of thing..."

I do not have time to go to the hairdresser. Tomorrow afternoon, I am off to the Faith Summer Session at Woldingham. For a week. And then I'm helping on the Faith Summer Break at Woldingham. For a week.

I'm not sure I can stand a whole two weeks of being dark ash blonde.

I have some pre-lightener, which should strip off the ash blonde colour. I can then apply a light blonde colour instead. That's the theory...

The reason I haven't done it already is a simple one: I've had some very bad experiences with hair dye. This makes me a little cautious. Kasia has described her hair disasters, but I think I can trump that...

My worst experience was about 7 years ago. I saw a new hair dye preparation which was advertised as an on-off product... it was permanent, but you could remove it with a special chemical when you'd had enough of it.

I suddenly developed the urge to go aubergine.

How the hell do I know why I wanted to go aubergine?

I went aubergine on Saturday evening. By Sunday morning I hated it. I used the chemical "off" switch. It didn't remove all of the aubergine... I was left with a few pinkish tones...

By Sunday afternoon, I had unearthed a packet of my usual ash blonde colour. I decided to apply this in the hopes that it would cover the slight pink tinge.

It didn't.

Instead, my hair went a rather horrible shade of brown. It looked, to me, like a bad case of diarrhoea. I phoned up a good friend, and poured out my woes. Like all good friends, she tried to reassure me. "Don't panic," she soothed, as I was describing how death was preferable to having to go in to teach while my hair was in such a mess (girls can be awfully bitchy!) By this time it was Sunday evening.

"I'm sure that your hair can't really be that bad... it just looks that way to you, the same way that you think a spot stands out a mile when no-one else can see it..."

I protested that my hair really was a mess. So she suggested that I come round for her to give her honest opinion. "If the worst comes to the worst," she said, "there's an all-night chemist near me, and we can figure out what to do."

I drove round to Angela's house and rang the bell. As she opened the door, her smile of greeting faded.

"I'll get my coat."

So, at 10pm, we went to the chemist to see what hair dye options were available. A pre-lightener and a blonde shade were selected. We then went back to Angela's house. I applied the pre-lightener.

To my horror, the hair went a vivid orange colour. Definitely carrotty. Angela declared that she liked it, but as she also had bright orange paint on her walls, I decided that she was biased.

The blonde shade was then applied. The end result was a mousey-blonde. Mousey-blonde with pink, brown and orange patches. I didn't like it, but it was better than either the aubergine-red, the shitty brown or the carrotty-orange.

By the end of the week, I went to a hairdresser and begged him to put it right. It took six months before the last patches of pink tone finally disappeared.

Hmmmmm. Maybe I need to think this through again...

We've got Mass tomorrow at 7am. I'll see how I feel after that...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about nice Mouse with a few blond streaks??

Dilly said...

I also did the aubergine a few years ago (natural colour being blondy brown)- and returned to pick up my toddler from nursery - and was initially refused access......till they did a double-take. I looked like Samantha's evil cousin in "Bewitched". I now realise if one is old enough to remember Valerie Singleton on Blue Peter, then one's skin tone needs light relief - not contrast - from the surrounding hair colour. Good job you got it sorted before the Year 10s saw it...

gemoftheocean said...

Girlfriend....*sigh* you call yourself a scientist and you haven't figured this out?

When trying something new you take some of your hair (the color it is now) get it a bit of a trim (assuming you can afford to trim your hair a bit) -- you take the cutting and apply it to the trimmed hair......dry. Duh. If it sucks, then don't apply it to the hair attached to your head. Yes, you may "waste" money on dye that doesn't pan out, but the extra money possibly spent beats you bitching and moaning about bad results after.

BTW, I was amused at Fr. Tim's "Fifth amendment" stance. Doubtless given the amount of sisters he has taught him early on not to answer questions like "does this hair color suck" or "does this dress make my butt look big?"

His lack of response in such matters, btw, PROVES he is not gay, due to the fact that a gay man WOULD tell you. ;-D

Karen

joannaB73 said...

I hope it doesn't go green like mine did once!

Unknown said...

The Pious Sodality of Church Ladies led me to your blog.

Grand.

Absolutely grand.

PJA said...

Ladies' hair seems to be the topic du jour of the blogging world at the moment. Perhaps you could help Deb ay UKOK - I'm blown if I can. I'm now at the age where I need to worry about keeping hair, let alone colouring it. LOL

Jennifer said...

I did that when I was a teen. My mother was horrified that I had pink, orange, yellow and green hair so she sent me to a hairdresser.
They tried to strip the colour but it didn't work. They ended up dying it a really dark brown colour. It looked horrible because I am fair and had natural blond hair then.

Dymphna said...

When in doubt, try black dye. It should cover everything.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...