Hair dye


My New Year’s Resolution in 2008 was to stop dyeing my hair. Two years later, I have long, somewhat brownish hair (I think the correct term is “mousey”) and sometimes I still don’t recognize myself passing by storefront windows or mirrors. Until 2008 I hadn’t seen my natural hair color since about the age of 13, unless my roots were starting to grow out. I thought once I got to this point all temptation to slather scalp-searing chemicals on my skull would have diminished to nothing but a passing whim, but these days I find myself in an all-too-familiar situation: wanting nothing more than to slather scalp-searing chemicals on my skull.

            I dyed my hair for the first time on my eighth-grade graduation trip to Branson, Missouri. (This wonderful occasion also marked my first period and subsequent unsuccessful use of a tampon. At a water park. Thanks, universe.) Other than the cramps and scratching my Offspring CD, all I really remember about that trip was buying red hair dye at a drugstore and dyeing my hair in a motel bathroom with several other girls. We made a gigantic mess in that bathroom, on the towels and on our clothes, a big bloody explosion of L’Oreal. It was wonderful. I didn’t even think I looked that different. I especially liked the fact that my hair color was now completely incongruous with my eye color, that it was obvious that the color of my hair was not my natural one. When it started growing out, which always happens rapidly when I put red on my hair, I felt a desire not unlike a smoker fiending for a cigarette in the morning and finding only an empty Marlboro packet in the house. I went to Wal-Mart and stole another packet of hair dye. This kickstarted a love affair with the Beauty Products/Hair Accessories aisle that spanned 13 ½ years, the ghost of which still lingers today.

            My hair has been all shades of blonde, blonde with blue streaks, hot pink, burgundy, purple, lavender, mahogany brown, orange, red-orange, purple-red, auburn, cherry cola red, and licorice black. I have had streaks, highlights and lowlights, tips, and once just dyed bangs. Every horrible thing you can do to ruin the integrity of your hair, I have done. I’m pretty sure my extended family is pleasantly surprised that I still have hair. Why did I do it? There are more reasons not to dye your hair than there are to dye it. It’s damaging, it’s permanent, it’s expensive. But, like most things that are damaging and permanent and expensive, it’s hella fun. One day you can be blonde; the next, fushia; the next, inky blue-black. Bananas!

            One of the reasons that I made the painful decision to let my hair return to its natural state (which was basically the decision that I would look horrible for about six months while my hair grew out) was because I felt it had overtaken my personality. For years I was The Girl With The ______ Hair. It sounds silly, but it was a huge part of my appearance and style in a way that became limiting, or had the potential to be limiting. I felt I had to shake it off. I wondered what I would do if I ever moved to Central America and didn’t have access to Feria or Manic Panic. I reasoned with myself that I will most likely start dyeing my hair again, at least for a little while, when I start to go gray, so I may as well enjoy my youth in all its natural mousey brownishness while I can. So I quit, and I have to say, it was harder than giving up pizza and Dr. Pepper.

            I don’t feel like I need to change my appearance frequently to feel better, or that dyeing my hair was a way to become someone new, a la Debbie Harry—maybe because I never had a signature hair color. I was just The Girl With The Red/Blonde/Spikey/Black/Purple/Pink Hair. I never felt like a different person, that the different hues imbued me with the license to another personality. It was the act of hair dyeing itself, I guess, that felt good. The Girl Who Dyes Her Hair.

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