A (Tiny) Change

When I was in high school, I was talked into highlights by my mum, several friends, and a hair stylist who I think wanted to practice. It was never a good look for me, because my hair grows so quickly, the highlights had grown out enough in a week to make my roots obvious--and BAD. Because my hair has reddish tones, it looked brassy when bleached, so the stylist did a wash of another color over my natural color to take away the gross. That just meant she dyed all my hair, so all of it had visibly different color at the roots, not just the highlighted parts.

In retrospect, the major problem with my highlights was probably the stylist who did them.

It took ages to grow it out, during which time Mum gave me highlights at home to cover up the mess, accidentally bleaching my whole head and making me sort of blonde. When blonde, my face does not look pale, it looks pink. Like the color of a cooked shrimp.

 That was a bad look.

I paid someone to fix it. I told her to take my color back to as natural as possible and asked if she could blend everything in happily and make me look human again. Instead she dyed most of my hair almost-black, except for the "blended" bits, which were blonde. I looked striped. Like a skunk.

After that had faded out, I used a box of dye close to my natural color and dyed my hair repeatedly until the bleached chunks were finally grown out. Then I cut all my hair off.

When it grew back out, I vowed never to touch my natural color again. I would keep it as-is, until it becomes so grey or silver or white that I want to play with the color. I would dye my hair blue or purple just to freak people out, I thought. (This was before Dame Helen Mirren went pink and I decided that, while she was DAME Helen Mirren and could therefore still be taken seriously with pink hair, I was REGULAR Laura and would be mocked by all.)

And then I found Essie Button, a beauty blog (and vlog) that is exceedingly helpful and fun.Estée is fantastic. Her complexion is similar enough to my own that I can actually wear the makeup looks she shows on her beauty channel. Her skin type is even similar to my own, so I can trust her choices in moisturizers and cleansers. She has made my life a lot easier. Also she has great hair. When I started watching her vlog, she had it ombré. It was very subtle, and I thought to myself, "I can do that. That would be cute."


I waited until my hair got long enough that ombré wouldn't look like I had decided to go for 90's-style frosted tips (young'uns, look it up), then I scheduled my appointment with a TRUSTED stylist. I have learned from past experiences. Do not trust some random person who has never seen your hair before to dye it a different color.

Here is the before.

There could be any one of three results:

1. I am an idiot. I might get used to it, but right now, not a fan.

2. I like it! This will be a nice change for fall and might even convince me not to chop off all this length and go back to my pixie cut. We'll see.

3. I LOVE IT! I am so glad I took this risk (not that it would qualify as a risk for anyone else). Now I just have to learn how to make my hair do more than lie there, stick straight. I need to take a class called, "Hair Style 101" or "Hair for Total Idiots" or "What to Do If You Accidentally Were Born a Girl."

On Friday, we'll see what my actual reaction is. And there will be pictures.