I was lucky growing up that my Mom had the philosophy that 'Hair Grows'. She allowed us to cut it and dye it whenever we wanted to because it would just grow out. So I spent my teenage years using those sachets of wash in and wash out dye, usually with little effect on my dark brown hair. I later moved on to actually buying boxes of dye with mixed results. Things took a step up when I moved to university in Sheffield and through my part time job at HA!HA! Bar and Restaurant became friends with the hairdressers at the Tony and Guy Salon over the road.
This is the only time I have ever had a male hairdresser, James, and he was brilliant! I always had great haircuts and some amazing colours. I started off with big chunks of red in various shades and then moved on to pink in baby pink, fuchsia and violet. I loved it and apparently so did Jon as he met me during this phase. The last time James dyed my hair it had patches of pink, blue, purple and red and it was for a course he was doing. I'm sure if I had any photos of it now I would still think I looked amazing! I eventually came to the realisation that I actually quite like my natural hair colour and it was only the last time that I had my hair cut that the very last ends of previously dyed hair got chopped off (the dyeing wasn't a recent thing, I just have very long hair).
However, I also grew up watching my Mom dye her greying hair and then even got to the stage where I helped her to do it after two part time jobs as a salon junior, so I knew that there would likely come a time in my life when I would be doing the same thing. When I was 21 and holiday in New Zealand with my oldest sister Sam visiting my second oldest sister Sheri the clock started ticking. I think the only thing worse than finding a grey hair is your older sister finding it. I don't even remember what exactly we were doing, I just remember Sam's sudden sharp intake of breath and "Amy you've got a grey hair!" followed by my screams of "Pull it out! Pull it out!" Since then the greys have come more frequently and now they're bringing they're friends the frizzies too. Two children and six year later, and they arrive in groups and pulling them out just doesn't seem to do the trick.
I'm not ready to just keep trying to retain my natural colour so I decided I needed to go for a bold colour. I thought this might give the impression that I was dyeing my hair because I wanted to and not out of necessity. Although I guess by writing about it on here I might just have blown my cover. Anyhow, I went for red and having had the box in my bag for a couple of days I finally took the plunge and donned the plastic gloves this morning.
I was about half way through when I realised I did not have enough dye. Did I mention that I have very long hair? I also have very thick hair, so thick in fact that when I go to my current hairdresser Emma, she books me in for a double appointment just so she has enough time to thin it out. There was no way Jon would have done a quick trip to Asda for me, and even if he had the colour wouldn't develop at the same time as the other one. So I soldiered on and hoped for the best.
The best is not what I got. It's patchy thanks to the lack of dye and it is not the colour the girl on the box looks so happy to be sporting. The only way you can even tell I've done anything to it is if I stand right under a light and then it has a reddish brownish hue. I even checked on the box what colour it would turn out with darkest brown to black hair and believe me this isn't it. A complete waste of two days being nervous and a morning spent dyeing, washing and drying it.
But there's hope. I've bought two boxes of a different brand in a red that I like and I'm going to leave it on for longer and keep my fingers crossed. It might work. Maybe.
I won't hold my breath.
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