I've wanted to do something different with my hair color. Last time I felt like that, it was rather a disaster when the temporary, washes out in 6-8 shampoos haircolor turned out to be much more permanent. And of course, I didn't choose a modest color, 2-3 shades different than my natural color, because it was "temporary". I wanted something really different and went for it with the confidence I would be playing around for about a week. I went black. Thank God it wasn't that nasty, fake black that seems to suck light from the room. It was a natural looking black, but unfortunately, not so natural looking on me. Had it been the light-sucking, fake black, I can only imagine how horrible that would have been. Even with how it was, I looked like one of those moms trying to be cool by following some outdated trend.
I kept it as it was until my roots grew in, and I started looking quite a bit like a skunk with a reddish stripe instead of a white one. It was time to start working on removing the temporary color, so I colored and bleached and colored again. I looked a little funky for at least another month, because I didn't want to totally fry my hair. It's taken a helluva long time to grow it to this length, and I wasn't about to have to start over because I couldn't live with a little color weirdness. My hair was pink once, for goodness sake. I can live with goofy color to save a year's worth of growth.
It hasn't been a year since the not-so-temporary black dye incident, and though it's still darker on the bottom 6-8 inches, it looks fairly normal now. I've been a redhead again for months, but I'm getting tired of it.
Except for the month or so my hair was almost completely black, my hair has been some shade of red forever. Even when I went blonde, it was a golden blonde that John says was still red to him. I don't agree with that assessment, and neither does his mom or Kay. I guess any bit of a reddish tone at all disqualifies my hair from being any other color than red to him. And maybe that laid down the challenge for me, because now I want it light ash blonde.
Since it was still more an auburn than red, going blonde wasn't going to be easy, and I knew it would have to go in phases unless I got myself into a salon. I dragged John to the store and had him point out how he might like my hair to eventually turn out. With his input, I chose a natural blonde color, knowing full well it would not at all be like what was on the box. I had some leftover highlighter at home I figured could help me even things out after I did the allover dye.
Phase one with the allover dye was worse than expected. Close to the roots, the color was exactly what was on the box, and the color got darker down my hair until the ends that were bright red. I immediately got the highlighter out and put that all over the end of my hair. When complete, Booie compared my hair color to that of our orange cat, Biddy. It was so bad, I wore a hat the next day to go back to the store and get another box of dye. This time, I went with a medium ash blonde that said it took out red and orange tones, and I applied it immediately, giving no mind whatsoever to the damage I may have been doing. I was not going look like Biddy!
This version turned out much better if not quite a bit darker than I liked. It was way less red. Feeling arrogant from the success of not having all my hair fall out from getting dyed to death, a few days later, I went with a lighter ash color with the second step of highlighter included. This one was not so ash, and actually put warmer hues back into my hair that made it pretty much strawberry blonde. And that is where it stands now.
My hair looks good, but it isn't what I want. Last night, John asked if I was going to keep it this way for a while, which I translated as meaning, "I like your hair like that." Yesterday, while I was out shopping for washer hoses (one of the supply hoses burst and drowned our laundry room) and groceries, one man honked at me, and another crashed his shopping cart into someone else while gawking at me. It took great will for me not to burst out laughing hysterically. I probably should have, but I felt kind of bad for the guy and the poor woman he wrecked into. Anyway, the blonde is working for me, and it's actually closer to my real color now than it has been in quite a while. I'll give it about a month before I work on it again in my quest for blonde without any red at all. I'll try getting some pics later, because I'm vain like that.
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One Year Ago Today:
