A Few Hairy Situations

Yesterday's history of hair post reminded me of a few hair dye incidents. Around the time I discovered Clairol Natural Instincts, (semi-permanent) Midnight Black, my suite mate Laurie asked if I would help do her coloring as it is much easier to have someone else apply dye. (all the girls in my suite were on board the hair dye train) I had never dyed anyone elses hair so I read over the directions several times before donning gloves and mixing the chemicals. I wanted to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. One of the things it said in the instructions was to be careful not to get the dye mixture on the skin around your hairline as it could stain or irritate. So I was ultra, extra, careful about applying the dye on Laurie's hair around that area.

I finished applying the dye, we set the clock, and waited. At the appropriate time, Laurie washed her hair and immediately began drying it so we could see the results. Her hair is naturally blonde but she had decided to go lighter. Now she was REALLY blonde and it looked great! All except for the very thin, line of her natural hair color, right at her hair line. OMG! I felt like such a schmuck! I was so cautious about applying dye around her forehead that I hadn't completely covered the hair there. I gave her roots with her dye job! Laurie was very gracious about the whole situation and lucky for me, we are still friends today. (hey-messing up a girl's hair is a serious offense!) Thinking about it now I still can't believe I did it.

Box dyes have always been a Russian roulette for me. My hair has never come out looking like what's on the box. (with the exception of the black, of course) It always comes out some shade of red no matter what color I choose. Even the browns have a reddish tint to them. I was always ok with how my hair looked though because I'm a fan of red.

There was this one time though when I decided to try one of those kits that had dye and highlights in one. It seemed simple enough. You apply the dye and after so many minutes, you mix the highlight dye and apply it with the special wand brush. This is what I got:

That was supposed to be brown with caramel highlights. I am smiling because I can't believe how terrible it came out and had to take pictures to show my mom and Jake. (This is before we lived together) Immediately following that picture I rushed to the store (baseball cap on my head) for another box of dye.

It only took one or two more terrible dyes after that before I started having my coloring done professionally. It is so nice to have someone else do it, to not have to clean up the mess, and the results are so much better!

One thing I have always wanted to do is dye blue. Not my whole hair, but more like highlights or tips or something. I found this picture online:

Now-a-days, many salons offer colored extensions because when you dye those vibrant shades, they fade very fast and then look like crap. It's such a cool idea except the extensions cost $10 for a strand. Not so cool when you're already paying for a dye and cut.

Speaking of dye and cut-I'm over due. I'm hoping to get in this week. We'll see. For now, I need to head to bed. I've been doing my daily NaBloPoMo posting at midnight as it's free and quiet time (IE: no James interruptions) and I can revise before "publishing".