Dye Job CATastrophe

Hair, pre-mission.

Before I went on my mission I had decided to grow my hair to my butt. When I left for the MTC, it was down my back to just above my elbows. By the time I got home it was to my waist. This is the longest my hair has ever been or will ever be again. I have super thick wavy awesomely heavy hair. It does not grow straight down like Marsha Marsha Marsha, it grows out. This was very beneficial when I was in Michigan in the cold cold super cold winter because it acted like a cape. It was much to my detriment in the super duper humid summer. Fortunately, I can french-braid my own hair, and I didn’t care what I looked like because I was a sister missionary, so I braided it all summer and tucked the braid under so that it wasn’t touching me.

An aside: I HATE it when my hair is touching me.

After I came home from my mission I had my heart broken. Because my heart was broken, I needed change in my life. What better and easier way to make change in your life than by cutting off fifteen pounds of hair. I had it cut off into a long shag and dyed it “mahogany”. With each haircut, I had it cut into a different style and dyed it a different colour. This went on for about a year. It was awesome. I love changing up my hair – especially the colour.

By the time I got to “Kohl” – read: Black - I was done and thought I would like to go back to my natural hair colour. (my mother was so relieved – she hates it when I have dark hair) I really hate the look of re-growth, especially when going from dark to my natural light brown/dark blonde colour, because the roots look grey in contrast.

I decided that I would put in highlights to balance out the re-growth while my natural colour came in.

I should note here that while I had stopped letting my mum cut my hair in high school and always went to a professional for a cut, I was still dying my hair on my own. All my hair products came from London Drugs because I’m cheap/poor like that.

Mother’s day weekend 1995 when my re-growth was about an inch and a half long and I could stand it no longer, I went over to my friend Christie’s house and we frosted my hair. She pulled it through the cap, and I applied the dye. While she was pulling it through the cap, she asked me, “What are you going to do if it turns out like white worms?” I assured her that it wouldn’t. While we were waiting for the bleach to process, we watched a movie and refinished shelves simultaneously. Christie happened to look over at me and said, “Oh girl, you better go look at your hair”.

The parts of my hair that had grown out, i.e., the natural part, indeed looked like white worms. The part that had the years’ worth of layers of dye, was ginger cat orange. I quickly rinsed out the dye and tried to add more dye to just the ends, to try to balance things out and tone down the orange, but to no avail.

I looked like a reject from “Cats”. It was awful. My hair was cut into a shag, so it flipped and flopped in every direction, and now I had FOUR different colours in my hair: uber blonde, orange, light grey/brown, and black/brown. Did I say it was awful? Well it was awful. It was the worst dye job ever.

To add to the catastrophe, I was on my way home to be with my mum for Mother’s Day and couldn’t go back to my apartment to get a change of clothes (or shave my head). I had packed a red and green plaid dress to wear to church on Sunday. We were going to go to my best friend Berit’s little brother’s mission homecoming. I was going to be seeing people I hadn’t seen in years and who knew me as a child. I had calico coloured hair and was going to be wearing a PLAID dress. It was bad enough that my hair was super loud, my dress was loud with a Scottish brogue! Fortunately, everyone in my family has a sense of humour and were very grateful for the added material.

The following Monday I called to make an appointment with my hairdresser, fully prepared to have to pay for a professional dye job, only to discover that she had quit the salon to go be a manager at the GAP. Translation: she wasn’t even doing hair any more. I was devastated for two reasons; one, I had been going to her for over a year, and she had such awesome hair! and two, my hair was all kinds of messed up and now I had to go to someone NEW.

Turns out this was the best thing that could have happened. Les had been taking all of Gina’s old clients and would I like to set up an appointment with him? I guessed it couldn’t hurt. I arrived at my appointment with new Les to see what could be done with my calico head. He ended up cutting it into an a-line bob that made the calico colours look more like intentional stripes. I didn’t even have to have it coloured to fix it! It turned out so cute. Les was my new salvation.

Until I met Tristann, I had never had a better hairdresser. If I still lived in Vancouver, I would still be with Les, I guarantee it. Dude was a genius with a pair of scissors.

My sister arrived to church late the following Sunday and saw me and mentioned to her friend, “O great, we have a new girl in the ward. And she’s cute too!” (we were in a single’s ward – you Mormons will understand). When I stood to “introduce” myself  - “Rantgirl, new haircut” she was instantly relieved. “O good, it’s just my sister!!”

Yes, my hair was SO fabulous that not even my own sister recognized me.