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*tap tap*
Well, if you are still here, I'll tell you about my annual hair knock down.
When you have pale blond and uninteresting hair, everything goes fine until you are about 32. When you turn 32 (or so) things start happening. Namely, the pale blond uninterestingness starts to sparkle a bit more than you'd like. You know, because it's turning gray. Now, this can go on for a good number of years more and you can tell yourself it's fine because your hair looks like champagne. Kind of bubbly. (Note to you ladies under 30: lying to yourself is an indispensable life skill after age 35. Start practicing now).
So you spend the summers running around outside and your hair lightens up and then grows some more, a little darker here, a little lighter there. You get about 15% of your head highlighted one day because you are feeling sort of ordinary and another day you get the tiniest fraction low-lighted because the hair - it's still kind of ordinary.
Then one day you wake up and you realize that your hair is nine different colors. And one of them is still gray.
Ordinarily it is round about October when this happens to me, and then I go to Aveda Institute on Spring Street and have them give me some 7N. (7N is the color my hair was when I was five. It is the correct color). Now, Aveda knows that I am totally not ok with dumping my entire head in a sink full of blond hair color. (I am holding out on that idea as long as possible). I have them pull 7N through the top layer to "knock down" the effects of sun and um the effects of, um, not being five years old anymore. Or twenty-five, if it comes to that.
Only this year, that hair knock down? It never happened.
If you were me this year, your dad threatened to die and you had a banger of nervous breakdown and you didn't look in the mirror for six months.
Then he didn't die and you realized you had to start paying attention to stuff other than inky black psychotic mania.
So you peeked in the mirror and you saw that, in your hysteria, you forgot to get your hair knocked down last fall, and as a result, your hair is very bubbly in addition to being nine different colors, and when you finally walk into Aveda, the stylist gasps "where the hell have you been? The knock down... it has been six months, yes?" Then she runs her fingers through your technicolor disaster and says "Wow. We need a whole lotta 7N."
Well, I let her do it. The 7N. The result is there was a whole lot of knock down. My hair has probably never been this dark ever in its life.
Now, I won't say I hate it because I don't. I kind of like it. But it's dark. Really dark. Wheatty dark. Nutty Chimay dark. If I look in the mirror I am all like "who the heck is that?"
So I am going to give it a few days and if i still don't recognize myself I will go down the street to the Russians who cut my hair before I left for Peru and let them toss some highlights into it. You know, to start the whole process over again. For the 7N.
Have a good weekend.
12 comments:
Hmmm... you know, maybe instead of just 7N, the colorist could mix up a custom color and you could use that to get the effect you want.
I have a special color mixed up for me, one that mimics my hair color before the dark brown gene decided to take over. Then I just get the roots done every six weeks (because the brown refuses to lay down and die, but I don't think that would be an issue for you) and a few highlights every six months.
Everyone thinks it's my natural color... I'm just sayin'. Might be easier for you.
Well, I think it looks very pretty. You have gorgeous hair. And now you are dark(ish) and mysterious.
I had a brief foray into hair color this summer. It was all slightly goth, which looked really good with the vial of blood I wear around my neck.
I think your hair is a beautiful color! I'd trade you in an instant.
My gray has decided to grow in just one streak on the right side above my forehead. Kinda of ala Rogue on from X-Men. But nowhere near as sexy. And I have too much Scots tight-fistedness in me to spend $$$ coloring all my hair for one streak.
The weird thing is people ask me if I color in that gray streak. Like I would spend $$$ to color GRAY INTO my hair. People are weird.
Haha. . .I think my hair may be a touch darker then yours naturally but I can completely relate to all this highlight, lowlight, few strands of gray craziness. And I am going to hold off on the whole head coloring situation for as long as possible too.
This is a nice shade though, Nina, very warm. I bet it gets lighter after a few shampoos. But I'm all about highlights, so I'd support that too. :-)
(It is nice to see I'm not the only one who has so much to say about her hair!)
This is a really nice color, even if you look like Cousin It in the photo. :)
I love the color in the photo! I used to spend $150 every 7 weeks to highlight and low light, color and cut my hair and buy products. But after it fell out from taking chemo drugs and grew back in, I've left it alone. But it's hard to resist. Once I color it once though, I can't stop.
OMG, I'd better run and take my hat off and start INSPECTING!!!!
New colors take adjustment. It's not that it's darker than it ever was, it's that it's more of a change than it ever was. You'll be fine in a few shampoos. Every time I got sick of whatever the latest color experiemnt had wrought, and I would dye back to my "natural" color, it was always a shock at how dark it looked -- for a few days.
I had to stop coloring my hair last year because of the mysterious unknown allergen. I had been coloring my hair since I was 12. Goth black, warm chocolate brown, every possible shade of red from copper to fuchsia, and even a warm blonde once. Now the last of the color is still growing out at the ends, but fortunately it's blended, not a big stripe.
Still, it's weird to have my natural color. And of course, NOW I've started to go grey, now that I've got no recourse to hide it.
I think that's a very nice color, Nina. Of course champagne is nice too.
Finn, We've already been down that road. 7N is my hair color untouched by sunlight, so it's darker, but it works. When we tried 7.5, good lord, that was a disaster. It turned up coppery and GAH I hated it. 8N is too light for me. So from now on I am going to let it grow and get highs every six months and 7N once a year. Aren't you glad you know my entire hair plan???
P, thank you for complimenting my pale and ordinary hair. It is rather more caramel colored now. I am sure you looked lovely with the dark and stormy hair. I keep a vial of blood around my neck, too! How did you know???
Mrs. Who, I have something of a streak, too. It is just too sparkly. I must crush it with 7N.
Em, it did brighten up a bit after I washed it once. I am satisfied with it. It looks much better than it did, that's for sure. Hey and except for the fact that you are tall and thin and have brown eyes, we look alike! How awesome is that?!
LizB, I tried to look cousin it like. Aside from that Christmas day episode, I still want to try to hide my identity.
LAS, I say you celebrate your recent perfecto test results by going back in for some more colors. I would. You totally deserve it and it would be giving the big fat finger to the horrible cancer. Do it!
Marlee, it's ok to have sparkly bubbly hair. Until it's not. Only you can tell when this moment arrives.
Maggie, unknown allergen?? Totally unfair. Surely something can be done. Surely! Is it just the L'Oreal stuff, or salon stuff, too? Damn, that's unfair. What about color washes? Temporaries? Glazing??
Utenzi, you must be so bored with all this woman-talk about hair. Next week, I'll try to think of something more interesting to say. Promise.
We're not sure what the allergen is (hence the "unknown") and it's taken four doctors and three rounds of testing so far to narrow it down to ... nothing specific.
That said, the rash tends to show up around my neck, right where the layers of my hair tend to hit it. Also where the scarves and furry collars hit it when the weather gets cold. So we think it might be some kind of dye chemical.
The docs are trying to keep me as restricted as possible, just to see if that helps. They've told me that there is exactly ONE brand of hair color I can use -- Goldwell -- that does not have any of the things that they are keeping an eye on for me.
That said, it's been a year since I've colored, way less maintenance to deal with, and fewer chemicals running around to annoy any possibly impending parasites. ;)
Your hair, on the other hand, is so caramelly beautiful that I can't help myself, I am missing the fun of color. Because it is fun, is it not? The ritual, the variety, the transformation?
Thin? Thin? Who's thin?
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