I just wouldn't listen

Okay, so I know I've been a little extreme with my hair colors this year. I honestly don't think I've waited more than a month to dye my hair this whole year, which means a new color a month. That's not so bad, right? Well, lately, I've been feeling like I needed to get back to my roots (ha ha), go back to blond and show my true colors. Oh gosh, I can't stop. I just mean, it's been significant to me somehow to stop pretending to be someone else, and be me, and the hair was symbolic of that process/transformation. So I wanted to go blond, but somehow got roped into having it dyed darker than I've ever gone before on my own. That was a month ago, and after a month of feeling tricked and angered at my hair, I decided to do something about it.

You would think, dyeing my hair as often as I do, I would know a thing or two about it. Like how you can't really go blond from super dark brown. With mahogany. But really, was that knowledge likely to stop me? Especially with what I've come to accept is an addiction-a once the thought is in my head there's no turning back mentality. Nope.

I took this beautiful color, and with the help of my mother- who was equally clueless in this process, despite many years of hair coloring experience-we began to strip the color down.

We got to this point and realized we didn't know what the heck we were doing. I'd bought a colorzap kit at the beauty store, and we put it on, despite realizing within two seconds that there wouldn't be enough. And despite living in Montpelier, a city with no resources at all. So there I was, watching the color fade from some parts of my hair quite nicely.

We got online to see if we could maybe use some bleach at home to get the color out, or plain developer. And thus I saw the thousands of horror stories of people attempting to bleach their hair themselves. Stories of hair falling out, frizzing into nothingness from the burning, hair going all sorts of bizarre colors. Now I'd heard from many people that this was risky. Even Lindsey, a fellow hair-dying fiend, said she had hers professionally done when she went blond from red. Was that going to deter me though? No way! Not when it would mean waiting a while and paying money...(I think i paid the equivalent by the end).

Anyway, the result: spotted cheetah Shena. And so I would remain until the next day when we could bleach it again. Sidenote: despite having only two days at home I spent the bulk of this day bleaching my hair and then driving to Logan to buy more bleach for the next day. real stuff, from the beauty supply store. This was poor planning.

Here is another great shot of my color. My dad said he was pretty sure I've dyed it this color before; I'm thinkin not.

Not quite.

Another proof of my poor planning. I'd had this great idea that to feel more like a band, I was gonna sing and play the base in Rock Band. See, this works for real bands because they actually know the songs they're singing, and they know the guitar parts they're playing. When you don't know either the words, the melody, or the guitar, its a bit more tricky. I got through two songs this way, then went back to a one instrument style.

Ahh, the result of my second bleaching attempt. So it was supposed to all go white. We had some issues getting it on my head, so part had had bleach for like two hours, and the other part not as long, and we didn't know if we should leave it and risk my hair falling out, or rinse it and leave me spotted still. We eventually chose a partly spotted method in favor of keeping my hair. But seeing my white head and those white roots-freaked me out! Oh my gosh. At this point I thought we had really gotten in to something we should never have delved into. And I felt more firmly the need to get this situation under control so I would not have to dye it ever again.

Very stylish, no? This is pre-dyed hair.

dyed hair looked little different. I wanted to cry when we finally dyed it the blond, and it was this straw, reddish, hideous and completely fake blond color. I gave up at that point. Wore a hat and drove back to Provo. \

Where, the next day, I began thinking I couldn't live with it like that, and it was already so fried, maybe one last treatment wouldn't hurt that badly. So I bought an ash blond dye that would hopefully take out the red and be better. Usually these colors go so much darker, which is what I want, so the result is still not great, and not the darker I was expecting. But less red. Still red, still ugly, but less. And i guess what I'll have to have for a while.

The moral of the story is: when everyone is telling you something, and they could only be telling you it for you're own good, and not there's, listen to them. I do, however, have quite the experience now for other would-be bleachers who may need some help deciding what to do with their hair. So if you know anyone, send em my way.