hair trauma

I know you have missed me this week, but between packing up my classroom at school so they could clean, and living through some hair trauma, I am finally getting around to posting.

This is a recent picture of my "before" hair. This was taken in November, but my hair really hadn't changed that much since then. I'd had it cut and highlighted in April, but it pretty much looked like this. Okay, got it?


This was the cut I was going for, below. I'd had my hair cut last year before going to Florida for my brother's wedding and it was really cute. I remember thinking that it was SHORT, compared to what I had, but I really liked it, and I liked the highlights. Charlie really likes my hair with highlights because he says it gives it definition. I'm okay with them. I actually really like my boring brown hair color.


I askedy mom, who cut and highlighted my hair in April, to come and cut it again on Wednesday night, and things went horribly wrong. So wrong. The box said to start the highlights 1/4 of an inch from your scalp, since the heat from your head would make them blonder. That was not good advice. Also, the box included two different brushes, one that looked like a mascara wand, and another one. The mascara one is the one that got me, I think, because it coated such large chunks of hair. AS SOON as we washed it out, we knew it looked bad. It was so blond. And in such weird chunks, especially on my left side. And that quarter inch thing? Yeah, it gave me brown roots. Yup.

So I took a deep breath, and just told mom that I would die over it the next day with my friend Laura who was coming and has colored my hair before. Bad, brassy, chunky, looks like I'm trailer trash, highlight problem solved. So I showed my mom the picture of the hair cut I was going for and she starts cutting. And cutting. And cutting.

This is my hair on Thursday morning, after wetting it. It does not show the horrible highlights as horrible as they really were cause my hair was wet. In fact, I sent a photo on my phone to Laura, and she called back to say, "it's not that bad." And then when she showed up an hour later and it was dry, she said "holy ....." Get it? It was bad.

So we went to lunch and Target and I bought a box of hair color called "Brown Sugar" to color over the highlights and Laura helped me. Now my hair is reddish brown, which is not my natural color, but is way better than the trailer trash highlights.

Um, and notice how short my hair is. Does that cut look like the one I was going for? Um, no. I am still getting used to it. Charlie likes it, he says, and people keep telling me it is cute, but I think it makes me look old.

I'm not used to my curls being quite so fluffy either, and not having hair that can be put in a ponytail. I think I will love it when it grows out about an inch longer, or so, and I guess having short hair in the summer isn't the worst thing in the world, right? It should be cooler, I guess.

So this is the story of my hair trauma...I hoped you got a good laugh. And I have to admit this isn't the worst thing that has ever happened to my hair. The very first time I got highlights, in a salon, no less, they were white zebra stripes in my hair, when I asked for caramel highlights. And I had to wait three days for the salon to fix them, because the girl who ruined them had to be the one to fix them. I asked them why they thought I would want that girl to EVER touch my hair again, but that was their policy, unless I wanted to pay someone to fix them. Uh, no. I felt like I should have been given a refund on that disaster, but she fixed it. Then, as they grew out, I had to keep coloring over them, cause I would have blond streaks starting at my chin. Lesson learned, dye washes out, but bleach has to be grown out and cut off.

Had enough, yet? I will leave you now and go and wash this hair that now only takes about a pea sized amount of shampoo. One bonus, I guess, is that I will save money on products. Yeah, lets look on the bright side, shall we?