New Hair Day

One bad hair day is not so bad. When you get to 30 in a row, it's time for action: a New Hair Day.

I have this thing about hair, beauty & fashion: I don't much care for any of them. But there comes a time when you are about to leave for three weeks in Denmark and then come back to (you hope) a new job, and you are tired of looking at the three stripes of color bands across your head -- one from when you thought going all blonde would hide those... uh... platinum hairs; one from a year later, when you hoped a few highlights would blend your normal dark hair with the blonde; and one that is your real dark hair, six months grown out with far too many "platinum" accents.

The photo at the top of this entry is the 'Before,' shot a couple of weeks ago; you can see the growing dark roots & general scraggly mop "style." Last check, it hung to around the bottom of my shoulder blades in back.

I had to go to the grocery store, and this being The Woodlands I figured there would probably be a hair place in the same strip mall. Sure enough, I ended up at L'Avantage.

"My hair needs help," I said to the woman behind the reception desk. She looked up with a blank stare. The colorist standing behind her looked at my stringy mess and chuckled. "Oh sure," I said, laughing back. "Laugh now, but it might be you who has to fix this."

Turns out, she did start the repair work. Nancy, the Amazing Color Goddess, took me into the salon and said, "What are we going to do with this?" And I gave my standard salon reply:

"Whatever you want. My head is in your hands."

I am a bit crazy about this hair thing. I get to some point where I can't stand to look at my mop in the mirror, and I need something new and fresh. I don't care that much about hair, don't read the magazines that concern themselves with that sort of thing, and expect the professionals at a salon to figure out what will look best on my head.

I'm sure all beauty professionals go home at the end of a trying day to tell someone, "Grr! I wish my clients would just let me do what I know would look good on them!" But when it actually happens, it's a little scary: "What if I do something and she hates it?" I can see the deer-in-headlights look when they ask me, "Do you want this? how about this?" I simply smile and respond, "I'm really easy about this. You are the professional, and I want you to do what you think will look good."

Three hours and 500 gallons of coloring goo later ("Wow, I apologize, but I am still going to have to go mix some more color." "I told you I have a lot of hair." "But I tripled the recipe!") I had the roots of a new look.

Now it was up to Britany, the stylist, to mold it into something fun. "So, what are we doing here today?" she asked sweetly. Silly girl.

"My head is in your hands. The only thing I'm going to tell you is that I don't want it way short, but most of the time, I wear it up anyway, so losing some length is not an issue."

She asked a few more questions, and I had to reiterate, "I don't know anything about hair. I don't even know the meaning of what you just asked me. You are a professional, I trust you to do something fun and cute for me, and I'm in your hands."

Finally convinced, she joyfully grabbed the scissors and made me gorgeous. I don't mean "drop-dead, movie-star, three hours in the bathroom before work every morning" gorgeous; I mean "cute, manageable, flexible, fun" gorgeous that totally brought out the fabulous coloring that Nancy had so carefully painted in. I was so pleased with the whole look, I thought my face was going to bust from grinning.

I walked around the corner to pay for it, and the receptionist's mouth dropped. "Aren't you the one who came in with the..." She made a "big hair" gesture with her hands, and I nodded, grinning. "Ohmigawd!"

I love change :)

[A side giggle here: when I ran Blogger's spell check on this entry, it wanted to change "Ohmigawd" to "homicide." Say what?!]