Hello. My name is Laurie and I am a hair color-aholic. This is a
rare affliction
– one that few women and even fewer men will admit to. But I am
addicted to hair color.
Hello. My name is Laurie and I am a hair color-aholic. This is a rare affliction – one that few women and even fewer men will admit to. But I am addicted to hair color.
Truthfully, I thought my addiction was under control. It’s been several years since I walked into a salon and demanded to see color swatches. I haven’t had flame-red streaks, black bangs or even platinum tips for years. I’ve been normal.
Oh, I’ve experimented. A bit of blond here, a streak of brown there. Nothing like the time I dyed my hair such a bright red that bees hovered around my head. But recently, I fell off the wagon.
Not that it was my fault, of course. Oh, maybe it was a bit my fault. Look, until three weeks ago, I was a perfectly normal blond. Maybe a bit too blond, but it was a perfectly normal blond.
And then one day, I noticed that I had green stripes in my hair.
For all my experimenting in hair color, green wasn’t a color I’d used. I was tempted once in the mid-’80s, but it was a passing thing.
Unfortunately, my new green highlights weren’t planned and they weren’t even a nice green – like Emerald Isle green or even green-with-envy green. No, my hair was booger-green.
Turns out it was easily correctable. But it started me down the slippery slope of hair color addiction hell. You see, the green was a result of chlorine build-up.
So I had my hair dyed brown to prevent further surprises – or temptations. Well, that worked until the mean, old chlorine started to fade the brown out.
So I took matters into my own hands. Big mistake. When you are a hair color addict, you should always consult a professional before dying your hair. But I didn’t – and that’s when things got worse. I dug around in the bathroom cabinets and found some shampoo that was guaranteed to put the brown back in. And, after using it a few times, I noticed something funky about my hair.
It was red.
Now this was not a red found in nature. I was positive that staring at it for too long would blind me, but I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that after I stopped using the shampoo and washed my hair about 50 times with regular shampoo in a two-day period, the red faded.
To orange.
Orange is not a good color for me – it clashes with most of my clothes. So I finally did what I should have done back when the brown faded. I called my hairdresser – who is also my sister. She sent me an emergency supply of light brown hair dye and a very explicit set of instructions.
Unfortunately, I’m just not good at following instructions. And I was reading a really, really good book while the hair dye percolated on my head. So when I finally washed the hair dye out, I discovered I was a very dark brown – well, close to black actually. At least that’s what Junior called it.
And, like most of my mistakes, it’s not a brown found in nature. I don’t know how to describe the color. It’s not mud or dirt colored. It’s kind of the color you find in a really stinky diaper after your baby has been eating beef stew flavored baby food. And this morning, I think I saw a streak or two of green peeking through the brownish strands.
Must have been the light. I couldn’t be back where I started, could I?
