There's Been an Incident With my Hair . . .

As my mom used to say, I . . . um . . . "encourage" my hair. "Encourage" was her word for doing her roots. This goes along with "A woman who will tell her age will tell anything." It's an Irish thing I think. Anyway, it was way past time for my hair's latest encouragement; plus, I've been saving some money by encouraging it myself for the past 8 months or so. In fact, I've encouraged it myself off and on for decades.

The only problem I've ever had was not of my own hand - it was at a very pricey salon and entailed THREE processes all in one day. I was not amused. But I digress.

Last night was the night and I did what I normally do, with what I thought were the colors that I usually use - because I've always mixed two colors every since they quit making the color that was my best color. I've always done this and there's never been a problem. So, imagine my horror when after the rinsing and the drying, my hair was not its normal beautiful shade of copper, but was F-ing FIRE ENGINE RED. CANDY APPLE RED. RONALD McDONALD RED.

ELMO RED.

HolyMotherofGod. I was panic stricken. I mean, what was I going to do???? This was not a rinse, it was permanent color, but I managed to calm myself down, and it was late and I was sleepy, so I convinced myself that by this morning, after I worked out and sweated a bunch and washed it five or six times, that it would probably have already faded enough to look OK, or at least not look as bad as I thought it did.

No.

HELL No.

No to infinity and beyond No.

I worked out. I sweated like a Big Dog, and I washed it multiple times, but it was quite clear to me that I could not go out looking like the local fire department. Plus, I was was running out of time. I need to get on the 10:07 train to get to my 12:30 class in time. So, I grabbed another box of color out of the linen closet, which was probably the shade I should have used in the first place and processed it again in the hope that it would tone down some and lighten it up and not make all my hair fall out in the process.

It didn't really do much - but I talked myself into thinking that it did enough that I actually went to the class I was signed up for this weekend. I figured that no one knew me there, and I had my cover story ready ("I lost a bet"), but, thankfully, they all had the good grace to not stare and did not have the bad manners to ask any embarrassing questions, although I'm sure they were wondering (as were a number of guys who were checking me out as I was walking back to the train after class - I mean, I'm reasonably sure they were not checking out my ass).

I took my White Sox hat with me, but had no desire to sit in class all day long with a hat on, so I braved it. Then, the train was 20 minutes late getting into downtown so I had to jump in a cab. And in the cab on my way to class, I rang my local salon, which is actually open on Sundays (thank you Jesus) and asked did they have a colorist there tomorrow who could see me early in the day and hopefully fix this. I must be living right, because they did, and I got an appointment at 9:00 a.m., with a guy that my cousin ME has used and likes.








The first photo was of me last week, and although it's quite faded, it's pretty close to my normal coppery color. The middle one (and yes, I got a haircut on Wednesday and don't I look like hell in this photo? I can't even believe I'm showing it to you - clearly it's been a very long day) is with a flash here in the office. It's about this dark, but it's way way brighter. In fact, the last one is what it looks like in the sunshine and is much closer to what it actually does look like. No wonder people were looking at me weird. And this is AFTER my attempted color correction. I mean, if I was 20, I probably could have gotten away with this as a fashion statement. But I'm not 20. OH. MY. GOD. How could I have done this?!?!?!?!?!?

So now, I'm waiting for tomorrow morning, and hoping my hair doesn't all fall out in the meantime, because, as you can see from the last photo, I don't have very much hair anyway (yes, that's my scalp- all those white spots are my head). Usually people can't really tell because I'm so tall that they generally can't see the top of my head unless I'm sitting down, but my hair is prematurely thinning. It's hereditary - my mom had it too - hence the really short haircut - all the better to camouflage it (really).


The ONLY positive about this is that I didn't do it on Sunday night, because I would have had to take a day off to get it fixed. There's no way I could have gone to work like this.

I'll take another photo tomorrow - please please please let this guy be able to fix this and condition the hell out of it so it doesn't break off like straw.

I guess I'll not be doing this again . . .

The Hair Incident. To quote one of my favorite authors, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

Comments

Michelle said…
I'm so sorry for my insensitivity, but I burst out laughing in the midst of reading your post! Not at the profanity (OUCH! My virgin eyes!), but at your self-inflicted Elmo-Red Hair Incident. Can't believe you are brave enough to SHOW us! And look at that! We have the same thin hair! And we're both tall, so really, we do need to remind each other how few people see our heads to notice our scalps showing through. (Although I'm married to a 6'5" man, he's a MAN and doesn't notice these things.)

My word verification is "relabb" - which is what will be happening to your hair tomorrow.... Hee!
candy said…
Ditto from me, too!! You are so brave and yes, I laughed through the whole thing. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I dyed my hair once years ago, and since my hair is pure white in front and mostly brown in back, the back of my head looked normal but the pure white part turned brownish green or brownish pink, I can't remember now. Then when my roots started to show, I had pure white roots in front and dark roots on top. I looked like a zebra.
Kristi ~ Ohio said…
It seems I'm not the only one with a hair incident. You were very brave to go out. I have medium brown hair. In my 20's, many, many moons ago, I dyed my hair ash blond. I had done this myself a few times before. Well my hair turned black...the darkest black possible. I went and bought another box of ash blond and tried again. OMG...it was now black to the point of being purple. Yes, I had to go to work the next day. Wild colored hair was not in at the time. I left work half day and had my hair stripped and dyed close to my natural color. I laugh about it now. I hope the appt with the colorist this morning does the trick for you. :) Kristi
Bethany (yarnorgy) said…
OMG! You had me laughing so hard! Like the others, I was amazed at your bravery as you disclosed this faux pas! I never thought you looked bad, what I actually thought was, "My God! She looks thin! How much weight has she lost?!!!"

Let's just say the 'adventurous' color represents your outstanding spirit! So, it's all OK in the end! Hugs, B!
Knittinggarden said…
I think most of us who are in the habit of encouraging our hair have had a mishap or two. I ended up with a bright maroon streak in the front on a night I was going to a school auction to either get or present an award. As my mother always said, "If you don't talk about it, no one will notice." At least it's nice to believe that!

Good luck today.
Michelle said…
Hey Red, there's an award for you over on my blog. :-)
A :-) said…
Since I got you all to laugh, my work here is done. :-D I think it's actually part of my job at work to get my boss to laugh on a regular basis.

Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments - and Michelle, you know I curse from time to time and yet you still keep coming back :-) I love that about you! I'll be over to check out my award (thank you!).
yarnsnog said…
Am I correct in guessing you're quoting Diana Gabaldon? We've all made those hair dye mistakes, mine was going black once, not good with dead white skin.
A :-) said…
Yes, Diana Gabaldon - Or I suppose I should say Clair :-)

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