Last weekend, I came to the realization that I was not going to pay someone to do my hair, at least not for now. I love the girl who's been doing it, but I just can't seem to get across to her that my hair is supposed to be RED. The first time or two, she nailed it, but since then, it's been shades of brown, to the point where Jim has lamented the departure of my normal color. I'm paying $100 a pop for it, and to not have it be right is not making me a happy camper, because funds are short when one has a kid in college, you know?
And so it was that I found myself in the hair color aisle at Walgreens. Granted, I used to always color my hair myself, but I hadn't done it in a while, and wasn't sure how to color it over a color. I had read that you can strip the color out and start from scratch, so that's what I decided to do. I found the L'Oreal Hair Color Remover, then found a shade of red I wanted to try. Now, this red was a bit lighter than the one I've used in the past. It was named some kind of reddish blonde, and usually I use "lightest auburn," but my hair was starting out darker than usual, so I figured I was safe. Well, not so.
I used the color remover, and kind of followed the instructions. It said that if your hair was supposed to be red or brown, to strip it down till the color looked reddish yellow. Well, me being me, I lost track of time, and when I went to check, it was already yellow. Well, that was ok, cause what's a little lighter, really? Well, when I say yellow, I mean it was banana yellow. But the box says to color right over it immediately, so I went right to it. When I got done, I looked like something right out of one of my new favorite movies, "The Fifth Element:"
Yep. Bright orange. And we were going out for drinks in an hour. Oh well, the bar was gonna be dark, and we were gonna be with good friends, so oh well, live large. Jim came to pick me up and after he sucked in some air, said "WHOOOOOOOA!" That was quickly followed by "you're not going out like that, right?" Well, I told him I'd go get a new color and redo if I needed to, because we had about 45 minutes, and it only takes about twenty to color. He said no, just leave it alone, but his face was not convincing. I decided what the heck, I was gonna get my punk on for a night, and off we went to the bar. Amazingly, when our friends showed up, they didn't think it looked more red than usual. It was either the dark or the drinks, or just plain charity on their part, cause wow. It was orange.
The next day, I toddled off to Walgreens again -- orange hair and all -- and then had to decide, yet again, how to go about coloring colored hair. I was concerned that if I tried to remove the color again, my hair would never forgive me, so I planned to dye over what was there. But then the problem arose. What color does one choose? I mean, the box shows what color you're starting at, vs where it will end up, but none of them show the starting color as crayon orange. So, I just took a wild guess, grabbed a box of red brown, and went off to color again.
It's now a dark auburn -- a few shades lighter than it should be, but at least the red is back. I mean, I don't feel like myself without the fire in my hair, even if it is not as bright as it should be. My hair has been fighting back this week, as flat as a pancake, so I'll be leaving it alone this weekend.
Maybe next time, I'll do the easier thing and just go blue.
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