Daring-Do

“Heard of rainbow hair?” I said, “You wanted me to go more platinum blonde. Ok. Deal. And when I do, I want that.” I showed her a photo.

She said, “You’re feeling radical?”

I said, “I’ve always been radical, you just never asked.”

But clearly this was beyond my hair stylist’s comfort zone so I gave up.

I said instead, “I’m tired of blonde highlights to hide the grey. Can you do lowlights and make it one shade darker?”

They said (I tried more than one): “Weeelll…I could, but with your skin coloring don’t you want to be blonde?”

I said, “With my skin coloring, yellow blonde makes me look tired. I’m the mother of a toddler. I don’t need help looking tired. Can we do something different?”

They said, “But you can be blonde. Don’t you want to be blonde??”

I said, “If y’all aren’t going to help me be something other than blonde, I’m going to get a box of home dye and do it myself. If I mess up, so what. Hair will always grow out.”

She said, “You’re daring.”

I said, “Honey, I ditched my whole life and moved to a different country. You think I’m afraid of a little change?”

So here I am. Three boxes of home dye and a few months later, I’ve got the right shade. Nothing fell out, and I didn’t even have to resort to chopping anything off.

I’m still annoyed at my hairdresser for not listening to me and/or not knowing enough to do techniques I know are possible (and I’m not really a hairstyling maven here, so what I’m suggesting probably isn’t rocket science). As a data point, a layered haircut here consists of pulling your hair into a ponytail and cutting it. Every hairdresser does the same.damn.thing. In front for light layers, in back for more dramatic ones. Which is ingenious, really, but definitely NOT complicated.

I said to my husband, “I tried to book an appointment with my hairstylist but no luck. I can never find time. I’m tempted to just cut my hair myself.”

“By yourself?” He said, “Really? You’re daring.”

I said, “I feel like I’ve had this conversation before.”

Yep. Color and cut by yours truly. I think I might never go back.