I have always dyed my hair myself. Well that isn’t entirely true. The very first time color was applied to my hair it was for my 16th birthday at a salon. My mother let me dye my hair at the salon with a temporary gloss. I wanted it to be red, like My So Called Life Angela red. It turned out pretty good. Thus began my obsession with dyeing my hair red.
I stuck to the normal shades of red for most of my teenage years until the summer before my sophomore year of college. I had moved out of the dorm and into my first real home away from my parents. I was all adult and everything. I had a job, I paid my rent, I smoked entirely too much pot. I could totally dye my hair whatever color I wanted and didn’t need anyone’s permission. It was then that I decided I would go for it and try the primary red I’d always wanted.
Rather than pay a professional to take on such a task I decided to do it myself. I certainly wasn’t going to waste my money on something I was totally capable of doing. I needed that money for beer after all. I went to the store and purchased a bleach kit and a box of RED hair dye.
I had never bleached my hair before and when it was all done I looked ridiculous. My hair was an odd shade of yellow with orange tips because of all the red dyeing I’d done over the past 3 years. With the color stripped away I set out to add the red. I followed the directions and when I was done I looking in the mirror to find a mop of fluorescent PINK hair atop my head.
At that moment I realized that I was so not cool enough to pull this off. What the hell had I been thinking. I promptly put on a hat and headed back to the beauty supply store. Not entirely ready to give up on my vision of alterna-hair I purchased a more orange red color somehow convincing myself that this would tame the pink. Back home and an hour later I was facing fluorescent ORANGE hair. At that point it was too late to do anything about it so I went to bed. Luckily there was no work in the morning.
The next day I ventured back out to the beauty supply store. With all hopes of a shocking color gone I bought a box of plain, brown hair dye. Surely this would tame the Tennessee Orange hair (shudder). Interestingly enough after adding the brown it did turn out to be a lovely auburn color.
All in all I bleached and dyed my hair three times in around 24 hours. After it was all over I treated my poor locks to several deep conditioning treatment hoping that I could persuade the hair to remain attached to my head after such trauma. It did stay attached but I have never been able to recreate that color and I’m not willing to try.
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November 2, 2007 at 1:04 pm |
The first time I dyed my hair bright red was when I was sixteen too, although it wasn’t on my birthday. I had to wait until after exams. I wanted it like Lola in Run, Lola, Run. I wasn’t allowed to bleach it, though. Like you, that had to wait a few years. When I was sixteen, I did it myself. Everyone told me you had to be very careful to get it all over the roots. I focused so hard on this, I didn’t do the ends! So I had red roots and brown ends… ugh!
A few later, I got the courage to bleach it. I bleached the underneath section, but it looked awful. I thought if I dyed it blue it would go dark blue on top and bright blue where it was bleached. Did it? No way! It went GREY!
Soon after that, I decided that anything more adventurous than brown would have to be done at the hairdresser!
November 2, 2007 at 1:56 pm |
Oh, how I suffered reading this. Thank god my nasty smoking habit back then kept me from having the money to do things like that. I am sure my hair would have jumped ship very quickly.
November 2, 2007 at 3:08 pm |
I remember wanting to dye my beautiful auburn hair bonde in high school. Of course I did it, but I’ve never been able to get my original color back. Now it’s a mucky brown. My mother swears that the dying is what ruined it. She thinks it altered my “hair chemistry”. If that even exists!
November 2, 2007 at 10:26 pm |
I chose to live vicariously through my best friend in high school. I convinced her it would be a great idea to dye her very short hair purple less than two months before she was to go into the military. Needless to say, it didn’t grow out enough to just cut off the purple, no dye in the world would cover it, and she was left to shave a good portion of her head. Meanwhile, I kept my lovely brown locks.
November 4, 2007 at 10:30 pm |
OMG, TOO funny. I wrote about my PINK hair. Hahaha. You and I have more in common than I realized. ;) ;)
Great post!
November 5, 2007 at 1:24 pm |
I also wanted red hair just like Angela on My So-Called Life. But I knew I’d screw it up if I tried, so I went to the salon and had it colored EXACTLY like hers. It turned out great! However, I didn’t have the money to keep it up, so at one point I had brown roots maybe 2-3 inches long with the rest bright red! I happened to be home from college at this point, and my mom couldn’t stand it. She final said that she would pay for it to be dyed back brown, and I took the deal because I couldn’t afford the red upkeep and was too afraid to do it myself!
My biggest blunder, however, was when I tried to cut my own bangs one year in high school. I cut them when my hair was wet at the exact length I wanted them to be. I didn’t realize that they would dry and look shorter. They ended up coming halfway down my forehead, and I was so embarrassed I backed out of a date that night!