Bad Hair Day

Bad Hair Day

Today, I woke up with every Kitsgal’s worst nightmare….Yes. I had a truly bad hair day. I have never been one of those gals who rolled out of bed and every hair fell into place. No, I was blessed/cursed with naturally curly hair that likes to ping in places where it should pong.

Bad hair days are not new to me. I have a long history of bad hair days. When I was growing up, my mom felt that the five dollars Magicuts was charging for a basic hair cut was outrageous. Thus, she took it upon herself to ensure we didn’t walk around looking like a pack of “dirty hippies”. Mom’s haircutting technique was simple and practical. She just kept cutting until the hair looked straight to her. Sometimes, she used a bowl as a guide; sometimes she just eyeballed it. The fact that my mom had a lazy eye condition could explain why, in pretty much every one of my school pictures, I look like Mr. Spock…..but only if Mr. Spock had naturally curly hair that pinged when it should have ponged.

Today, however, was different. It was different because the colour of hair I woke up with, was not the colour of hair I went to bed with. Before going to sleep last night, I decided to play with some colours to give myself a fresh new look. When I woke up, my hair was bright cotton candy pink. Apparently, you cannot mix red and blonde highlights together….because…if you do, they make pink. It seems so clear now.

I arrived at work and tried to hide the mess in a ponytail. Pink is a hard colour to hide. Sooner, rather than later, people started to notice. Some people were really kind – waaay too kind.

“Oh! It looks so cute. What a creative choice,” some people said.

Others were a bit more blunt. “Aren’t you a little too old to pretend you are Avril Lavigne?”

Then it began. One thing I have noticed is that when a personal crisis is looming, people have a knack of telling the worst possible story under the guise of “helping.” Yes, the hair dye horror stories began.

“Oh. I once died my hair blonde and then it became so brittle all the hairs fell out. It was the day before my wedding and I had to wear a wig for six months.”

“Oh. That’s nothing. This friend of mine once had a hair dresser put foils in her hair and it gave her brain cancer. She recovered but her boyfriend broke up with her and took her life savings. But the foils looked good though.”

“No way. Well a friend of a friend, once got some streaks done and the hairdresser pulled so hard on her hair when it was in that cap thingy that her brain fell out. Then her cat died. ”

Enough!

After citing a “hair emergency” my super cool boss gave me the day off. I am not sure if he did it to be kind or so he didn’t have to look at me any longer.

Regardless, I ended up at a posh salon on West 4^th. It was the only one I could find that would agree to fix my pink hair. There, I met Ruth. I loved Ruth instantly. She was petite, swore like a Teamster and had a technicolour head of hair. Picture all the colours you would find at Benjamin Moore and they were in Ruth’s hair. When she first saw me, she thought I looked awesome and said I only needed a bit of purple and yellow to be really trendy. I told her that I needed to have a colour of hair that you would find naturally occurring in nature. She looked disappointed, but said “Okay.”

Ruth dyed my hair the only colour dark enough to cover the pink – yes, a deep dark chocolate brown. I find it kind of ironic that both my hair colours in the last couple of days have been reminiscent of carnival food.

I left the salon looking very different. It is a shock to pass the mirror. “Who is that Goth girl? Someone call security!! Oh my goodness. It’s me!”

I have to wait two months before my next colour adventure. Stay tuned.