Hair Angst

Early this past summer I switched hairstylists. I felt like the old one was just rushing through and didn't pay as much attention to what she was doing as she did the first time I saw her. Buh-bye. I found a new stylist and I got fancy highlights and a haircut and all was well. I went back every 6 weeks or so like a good girl to get "maintained". I have inherited the early grey gene from my father and I read in a magazine that highlights (I have dark brown hair) hide greys the best.

There are so many things that stylists don't tell you. Did you know that if you have well water (which I do) your highlights will get a reddish tinge to them as opposed to city water which will tint them green (because of the chlorine). They make these fancy color depositing shampoos now that can counteract the effects of your water and she did not tell me this the first time so my hair started to turn a lovely orangey brassy color. Nice. Top this off with another round of lighter highlights which kept their blondiness thanks in part to my brand new purple shampoo and I bet you can imagine the mess I was sporting.

I have not paid as much attention to grooming myself as I did say when I was fourteen, mostly because I work from home and I am not one of those women who is going to put on mascara just to get milk. So even though I read a bevy of beauty mags, they mainly push products and are somewhat light on technique and practical knowledge. For example, I have never used a straightening iron. I told this to my new stylist and she was shocked- SHOCKED! She was so shocked (and a little appalled) that I felt a little embarrassed and decidedly unhip.

So here we are, weeks later. I am sporting a funky combo of grown-out orange and blonde streaks with dark brown roots and am in dire need of a trim. Yesterday I experimented with my straightening iron and later that day Jeffery told me I had homeless-man hair. "You know those dirty homeless men you see that are sorta thinning on top but have long hair on the sides that's really wispy and floaty and sorta bounces when they mutter on past?"

Yes, thank you. I have a vivid image. I have decided the straightening iron sucks and I am going to stick with my air dried waves, augmented with a curling iron which I somewhat know how to use and liked better anyway. But the color...oy.

I went in this morning WITH A PICTURE and said that I wanted to go back to the brown. No orange, no highlights, no grey. Brown. She brought out this gigantic hair book and she matched my natural color and we decided on a lovely chocolate brown. "Rich" is how she described it. "Burgundy" is the word I would use. I am disappointed, and I have come to the conclusion that the lighting in the salon really sucks. I walked out of the dim-lit salon happy actually, and when I got into my car and went to admire myself in the natural light of the rear view mirror it was a bit of a shock. I am going to go back and see what she can do to de-purple me, but in the mean time it's going to be a lot of shampooing with Prell and hot oil treatments (both of which are supposed to strip color, fyi). The most disturbing thing is the color difference between my eyebrows and my hair. In dim light they look okay, but as soon as the light hits my head I seem to fluoresce a little and my eyebrows look almost green. So not cool.

I remember reading a couple of years ago Anna from absolutely-vile (now Door Sixteen) mentioned that after numerous experiments, the only dark brown hair color she found that would not fade into a brassy mess (that's me paraphrasing) is Revlon High Dimension #40 - Dark Brown. I have used this hair color several times and she was right. I have decided that I will definitely go to a salon for highlights, but if I am in an all brown mood, I am just going to do that myself and save the cash. At least the orange is gone. And the hair cut was good.