Last Friday I decided to have red streaks put in my hair. This has nothing to do with football, or any team that plays in red. It was a whim.
There is a background to this story. I have always been satisfied with my own hair colour, so I've never put anything artificial on it. Well, except for that time when I was eighteen and 'Aubergine' was fashionable and I bought a Harmony wash-in colour. Some bright spark said: 'Ooh...your hair's really dark...you'd better leave it a bit longer than the twenty minutes'. So I did. I left it two hours. Just to be on the safe side. And although my mother's bathroom sink took on a nice indigo hue, and two of her best towels were permanently stained purple (I was eighteen - who knew you didn't use the best towels when using hair colourants?) my hair remained exactly the same colour that it had always been.
So since then, I've never bothered. Until last Friday. Karen the hairdresser arrived, put a cap on my head and proceeded to pull bits of hair through the little holes by means of a crochet hook. Well, it looked like a crochet hook. Hairdressers probably have a fancy name for it. The red colour was duly applied, and we waited for the prescribed length of time. Nothing. No red. Hair exactly the same as before. I felt this was probably not the best time to tell her about the Harmony incident.
'I'll have to bleach it' she said. 'That'll work. I'll take your own colour out with bleach and then the red will 'take'.' Off she went to the car and came back with some solution that my mother used to call 'peroxide'. After this was applied, we waited again. Twenty minutes. Nothing. So we waited a bit longer. Still nothing.
'I've got something a bit stronger in the car' she said, and came back with a bottle of some industrial strength soloution which looked and smelled like what I imagine the ancient Egyptians bleached their linen with. By the time I had waited for the next stage I was losing the will to live and I have to admit that this thought crossed my mind:
Anyway, finally there was some success. Some. Not much. The streaks are more of a copper colour than actual red. In fact, my hair now reminds me of those days when I was teaching Year 1 and I got a bit too near the painting table. Still....it's a change. But somehow, I don't think I'll be bothering again.
Oh, I almost forgot. If you happened to be watching BBC News 24 on Saturday during the United and Chelsea match, and you saw a blonde nineteen year old pacing the streets outside a bar in Old Trafford with the voiceover saying:
'....and the tension is just too much for this diehard fan....she just can't watch....'
That would be the Football Fanatic. National news. Fame at last!
30 comments:
you are very brave motl with the hair thing, and once again lead where others follow.
you are certainly braver than me. i vowed never to put myself in the hands of another hairdresser again after the time the fire alarm went off and i had to stand in the street dressed in a plastic bag while my senior stylist chainsmoked her way through a packet of 20 and leered at the firemen.
What? No cleverly coy photos of said red tresses ?
Think of all the time she spent on you! Hours by the sound of it. You must have very dark hair!
Football Fanatic on the News & I missed her! Blast!
My neighbour was at her hairdressers from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon waiting for the bleach to take to her hair. She has thick dark hair. She had to give up in the end.
OOh Football Fanatic on tv, sad I missed her :(
Gosh my hair would have turned to straw if I had put that much bleach on it!
Must be that time of year! I just had some red put in mine as well! Great minds think alike, eh? Congrats on the FF's minute of fame too.
I had a brief stint as a red-head about a year and a half ago. It was fun, but no cigar. I'm back to my original blonde.
Well, it was originally blonde when I was young. I've changed it so many times now, I have no idea what the true color is. But I'm claiming blonde, anyway. It serves as an excuse for when I do something really dumb - which is pretty often!
Tell the football fanatic I said congrats on her new-found fame. I think that's how Pamela Anderson was discovered . . . :-)
--r
I last had my hair coloured a year ago. It looked fantastic, but . . . it cost me so much money (the cut, the colour, the products) that I swore I'd never go to that length again.
The colourist called today. I may find a way to fix my mop now that it looks like the backend of a emu. It's disgusting! But, perhaps it's worth the money (a lot of money - call me dumb blonde here) to make me feel good about my hair and having it done.
Grit - how awful for you!!
the perils of having dark hair, eh? i used to want my hair to be a medium brown, but no matter what i did it would always be some form of the same hair with more reddish highlights. frustrating to say the least. my last coloring job the highlights took longer than most people. right now i'm seriously going grey, but i have this urge to dye my hair black w a few pink 'hidden' highlights. when i save up enough pocket change, i'll do it...can't wait to see how that goes and should a 41 yr old even have that kind of hair? LOL
Drats, no picture of you with your sparklie, almost non-existing highlights!
I bet you are beautiful regardless. I am really amazed that your hair is so set against change.
Well, good to be stable among so many of us who are in a relationship with our stylist that isn't always so colorless ;-)
Kimmie
mama to 6
one homemade and 5 adopted
Hate to disappoint you but we hairdressers call it a crochet hook:) I did hair for 25 years and if you had been in my care you would now have red streaks.
Huge mistake on the part of the hairdresser to do color away from the salon where you have access to everything you need. I learned that lesson early on.
All she needed was some off the scalp powdered bleach with a couple of protinator envelopes and whiz bang your hair would have been lifted the proper amount.
Thanks for my award and congrats (late) on your 100th post. I finally got my award up.
Hate to disappoint you but we hairdressers call it a crochet hook:) I did hair for 25 years and if you had been in my care you would now have red streaks.
Huge mistake on the part of the hairdresser to do color away from the salon where you have access to everything you need. I learned that lesson early on.
All she needed was some off the scalp powdered bleach with a couple of protinator envelopes and whiz bang your hair would have been lifted the proper amount.
Thanks for my award and congrats (late) on your 100th post. I finally got my award up.
I got my hair coloured on Saturday for the first time since 1987 when streaks and big hair were the norm!
I've gone from strawberry blonde with a few grey streaks (!) to medium brown. Very daring for me...
http://tootsie.wordpress.com/
Football Fanatic on national TV and I missed it? Did anyone record it? Oh trust me! I couldn't even commiserate with Fixer properly on her blog 'cos I got the score wrong! You can tell I don't follow MU can't you? Hm? What gave it away then...
My hair used to be like yours. Nothing would take. Now I'm older and greyer, everything does. TG.
Great post again - leading where others tentatively follow, as Maggie says.
PS - Who won the book?
Not brave enough to do mine, however I went through the burgandy streaks period when I was a lot younger and that never really showed up on mine either.
Maybe there's something to be said for turning grey?!
How sad is this?
Daughter is strawberry blonde (recessive gene: both parents carry the gene, but do not have to have red hair. I got so sick of people asking where her red hair came from, I have blonde and red highlights!
Now people just comment on how curly it is. No, I am not having a perm!
I can all but smell Harmony hair colour, several thousand years down through from my youth! Scary, these dips into the past. And I am also, I almost dread to confess, horribly intrigued by you and the father of this lot and the unfolding drama which to me is fascinating but to you the underpinning of your life. Good luck - for whichever way you want it to go...
I have curly hair and had it straightened once, but the hairdresser left the concoction on so long that it burned my scalp and since then I have avoided chemicals on my head. :) I also never went back to that hairdresser.
Ok your hair story reminded me of a story about my hair when I was younger...I'm going to post it if your interested.
Gives me something to write about! It's been a while since I've posted anything...:)
I went red a few months ago and it was a shock when I first saw it on me. I loved it though. My natural colour is blonde so there was no problem with the colour 'taking'. It's good to have a change now and again.
Woah, hair colours are scary. I thought I'd had too many highlights and asked my haidresser to make me closer to my natural "honey blonde." Within 20 minutes I was turned in a red setter! Near to tears (I was getting married in 4 weeks), she shrieked "I'll neutralise it!" Then I was Toyah!. I called my "PUD" hairdresser and told her what had happened, she said "tesco ash blonde". I looked like a flippin salmon. Now I have to do it in "Frog" even more scary. PUD x
Hair tells a wonderful story though doesn't it?
I have peanut butter and jelly stripes. I live in Vermont with all of the granola girls and LL Bean. I dress like a gypsy and have striped hair. This is how I get through the loooong winters.
I think we need pics with this post....
Oh Jackie .. the stories I could tell you about hair dye .. I wont .. just lets leave it at I once decided to go blonde and ended up with a pixie hair cut not because I wanted one but because that was all that could be done to what little hair there was left on my head ..
Daryl
that's some resiliant hair you have! and as for the football fanatic - you guys aren't doing anything to dispel the myth! still, a win's a win eh?
My hair is black so no color come on, but I dye it auburn red to hide a few greys.
I have, 't forgotten the meme Jackie.I will do it.
My Lord are they still doing the old cap and crochet hook thing? I went through that hell about forty years ago and said never again! I'm so glad that you got mentioned by David as I had lost your blog address and now I've found you again!
Sandi
Isn't looking gorgeous like us such a chore? Everybody thinks it's so easy...
I have red streaks in my hair and they DO show. Every time I go, the hairdresser listens to me, does the job, then says, "oh, and I made it darker than you said because I know it will fade quickly." I don't get it. One day I will remember to tell her, "and DON'T do it darker!!!"
HI The Mother, how tricky for you - I have had my hair every colour from nearly black through to nearly white over the last forty years. What brought on the desire for red streaks BTW? M xx
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