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July 18, 2005
Doing the roots
I figured I would take 30 minutes of my day and actually dedicate them to me. You may be wondering what kind of fabulous pampering I have planned for myself. A bath, a manicure or even a mini spa treament perhaps.
Nope.
I'm coloring my hair. Too many damn grays popping up at my temples. I'm 35 not 55. I cannot have gray hair. No frigging way.
I've already applied the product in my hair and, as I am typing, I am feeling a slightly more tingly/burny feeling that usual. I hope I didn't get a crappy hair kit. I don't have time for screwed up hair. The last time I had screwed up hair was when I was 17 and my friend, who was currently attending vocational school for hair (yeah, I'm a sucker), offered to help me frost my long hair (past the middle of my back). She asked me how light I wanted it and I stupidly said "As light as I can get it".
Now, as anyone in the hairdresser field might know, it's ideal to advise a client if they, in your professional opinion, have chosen unwisely. My friend, although sweet and nice, wasn't the sharpest scissor in the batch, if you know what I mean.
She said "Ok" and slapped the cap on me, pulled my hair through and applied the coloring. While my head was baking, we chatted and had a grand old time. The timer rang, she checked my head and told me it was time to rinse. We rinsed and rinsed over her tiny bathroom sink. When I flipped my head up and looked in the mirror, I sucked in my breath and was, literally, speechless for a moment.
My hair was white blonde. WHITE BLONDE. I am a natural brunette - medium brown. I was BLONDE, with a nice dark root going down the center of my head. It wasn't a nice blonde either. My hair felt, literally, like straw. I freaked out and said "Oh my God. WHAT DID YOU DO?" My friend said, and I swear to God she said this, "Well, that's what you told me to do." I was horrified. All I could think was "My mother is going to kill me." I ended up leaving shortly after that and driving home. It was late at night and I just snuck upstairs in the apartment and went to sleep.
When my mother saw me the next morning, she was speechless. Well, only for a moment before she flipped out. Looking back, I can't say I blame her one bit (Hi Mom!). She told me to never ever let my friend work on my hair again. Of course, I didn't need any further convincing. My hair was just ruined.
About a year later, both Mom and Husband convinced me to go to this new and fabulous salon that just opened up in our area. Mom had found an awesome stylist and she was going to fix my hair. So, I make the appointment and go in at my scheduled time. This place was one of those glamorous salons. You know the type, with the gorgeous stylists that make you feel insignificant. Immediately, I felt uncomfortable. Denise, my stylist, was stunning, just beautiful. Tall and blonde and, thankfully, very nice. She made me feel very comfortable right away.
Then, she looked at my hair. If this was a horror film, the Psycho music would have been heard at this point. :::reet reet reet reet::: I am surprised that Denise didn't scream and stagger backwards after looking and touching my chemically damaged hair. Once the shock wore off, she kept saying "I've never seen hair this damaged". Other stylists were looking at me like I was a lab rat.
She cut off about 8 inches of hair. I was so sad. I loved my long hair, damaged or not. After the chopping, she dyed it back more towards it's natural color. When I was all rinsed and blown dry, I looked in the mirror and instantly hated it. HATED it. It was short and mud colored. Husband, the charming and wonderful man that he is, said it looked SO much better and he liked it. When I showed my Mom, she liked it too.
So, there you have it folks. The lesson of the day: Friends don't let friends frost their hair.
Now it's time for me to rinse. Any one else have hair horror stories?
Posted by Cate at July 18, 2005 08:59 AM
Comments
Welllll, one time I got a REALLY bad mullet...
Posted by: zonker at July 18, 2005 10:08 AM
Well, I could tell you about the time the stylist whacked all my long hair off before giving me a perm, thereby making me look like a french poodle on a bad day. But I've had therapy now and I'm over it. Mostly.
Michele sent me today.
Posted by: terrilynn at July 18, 2005 10:16 AM
Um, yeah. Remember the Ronald McDonald red streaks in my hair? And that was just last year. When I was 38 and should've known better. Never again.
Now wait, you wore your hair like that for nearly a year? There has to be pictures. Come on, share . . . you know you wanna.
Posted by: Sooz at July 18, 2005 10:25 AM
I don't have a single gray hair - they have all been discreetly taken care of courtesy of strategic highlights. A few years ago, I let my MOM dye my hair, to try to hide the grays...I was a carrot head for the 17 hours it took me to find a stylist willing to touch my hair...
Posted by: Theresa at July 18, 2005 10:40 AM
Well, there's the summer of Sun-In, during which I sported bright orange hair...there's the time that I got a perm, even though I have naturally curly hair anyway, and so I ended up looking like a poodle...there are all the times I've gotten bored and taken scissors and started hacking, just to see what would happen....
Now I pay professionals to do it all for me. It's less exciting that way, but overall, it's better for my self-esteem.
Posted by: Melanie Lynne Hauser at July 18, 2005 11:33 AM
Ha,ha,ha... Sounds like you had a blonde moment :D
Thanks, I need a laugh. :D
Posted by: Larry Morin at July 18, 2005 12:00 PM
OH YES! Not that long ago actually! Tried to lighten my naturally dark brown hair...and instead of a nice pretty light blonde...I ended up with BOZO the CLOWN orange. Yeah...I hated it and I cried! LOL!
Posted by: Wendi at July 18, 2005 01:14 PM
Yep, that was me at 10:00 last Wednesday night, prior to the trip to Vegas. Gotta look good!
Posted by: Bridget Unnel at July 18, 2005 05:06 PM
When I chopped my butt-length hair off as a teenager, I decided that I needed to do something to be different.... I dyed it jet black. That wasn't so bad... but then I let it grow.... the 6 inch stripe down the middle made me look a bit like a skunk for awhile!
Posted by: guppyman at July 18, 2005 05:22 PM
I've had my hair every color that a human was ever born with...and a few that they weren't ever.
The most frustrating thing was when I was a teenager back in the 80's and trying to do my hair blonde...back then Miss Clairol was the strongest thing available over the counter and it made my hair Molly Ringwald Orange (which, isn't her natural color either, incidentally) instead of Champagne Blonde.
I wear my hair pretty short, and even shorter in the past year when I decided that too many grays at 34 make the gothic black a bit too severe. I'm streaked blonde now, and people like it. Too much. My ex husband told me how great it looked and I almost went diving for the first bottle of L'oreal Soft Black I could find.
But as blonde as I am right now, that might turn my hair green.
My sister had much worse luck with color than me back in our "do it yourself" teenage years...because she wore hers long and wouldn't cut it. Now she won't use any color and is going sooo gray. But it really looks cool :)
Thanks for the walk down memory lane! I swear if you hold up my past drivers licenses I look like I've gone through the Witness Protection Program, I do not look like the same person twice.
Posted by: Ro at July 19, 2005 10:59 AM
Back in the mid-1980s, in the middle of the big hair era, I allowed my hairdresser to talk me into a perm. I should have known better, particularly since my very straight hair used to make her say "I didn't look Puerto Rican enough". The ensuing disaster took nearly a year to grow out and caused my husband to stare at me across the table in a wide-eyed, silently disparaging way.
So much for that hairdresser.
Posted by: Fausta at July 21, 2005 07:12 PM
I got a Really Bad Haircut on Wednesday. I like the guy who cuts my hair; shop is in walking distance, we see each other walking our dogs, he's a lot of fun to talk to, etc., so I feel guilty about looking for another place to go. But he gets carried away talking while cutting the front, cuts off WAY TOO MUCH, then I have to ask to have the back cut so I don't look too mullet-y.
Right now, I look somewhat mullet-y. Guilt be damned, I'm going somewhere else next time. Probably in December or January, when I finally have some hair grown back.
Posted by: Sharon GR at July 24, 2005 01:49 PM
