45under45: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

As is typical of many young girls (and fully grown girls) fabulous and fun hair is like the Holy Grail of how one presents oneself. My sister, Cindy, used to say, "Your hair is the accessory that you wear everyday." I think about that statement often...but probably not often enough. Usually, I don't spend much time on my hair. If I'm going to do something special, then I fancy it up and may spend an hour or more just on the curling or straightening. That is NOT something that I want to do everyday!

I also love hair color. I've been black, blue black, brown, purple-red wine, red, way overly highlighted...almost blonde, and about a zillion colors in between. When I was in high school my best friend's mom was a hair dresser and I wanted a chic name for the color of my hair. We pulled out all of those little hair swatches and matched up the perfect shade..."BROWN"! Ugh. That's my natural color. And so is my daughter's.

I've allowed my daughter to color and highlight her hair.

#1 It is fun.

#2 Lice won't live in colored hair. (Or so I've been told. We had a run in with lice and I NEVER want to do that again!!!)

When she was in early elementary school my husband took her with him to have his car serviced. That service station had a hair salon inside and while waiting, (with my permission) she had Ronald McDonald red highlights put in the top. It was so cute! And being a private school kid, this was something fun just for the summer time. In the pool and at the beach, it faded, and by August, the red washed out and left blonde streaks. (Two for one highlighting! And at the car dealership, no less!)

The next year when school let out, I did shocking pink highlights on her. Why pay money when Mommy can do it? I sectioned her hair, bleached out the brown, and slathered on the pink. A-dorbs! Again, by the time school started, the pink was gone and the blonde remained.

Then, there was...brown, red, even blue (which lasted only one afternoon, thanks to a pool party the next day), proper salon blonde highlights... Until this year: Summer wanted her hair to be red with contrasting blonde highlights. So, off to CVS for a couple of boxes of hair dye. I colored the whole head a "pretty" red and then foiled blonde highlights around her face and crown. Sadly, the red wasn't as dark as I thought that it should be and the whole thing looked just brassy. After a few days, I re-dyed her whole head with a deep bloody red, hoping the blonde highlights would pop with firey red and the remaining hair would be a true blood color. Ta da! I thought it was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!

Blood red with highlights....and her broken arm.

After a few months, she didn't want that color anymore. Daddy took her to a proper salon that stripped all the color from her hair, colored it ashy blonde and then foiled in highlights. So, to recap: Around October-December it was red and then starting in January it was blonde. In the following photo you can see us dressed up for the Gasparilla Pirate Invasion. Mommy with the red/brown and Summer with the blonde. (This is one of those days that I put a good hour into curling my hair followed by another large chunk of time blowing out Summer's hair. We have naturally fuzzy hair...not straight...not curly...just fuzzy.)

Fast forward to the day after the last day of school. "Mommy, I want brown to red ombre hair." After a little YouTubing, I am now a trained stylist. Off to CVS to pick the shades of red and brown. We set up our shop in my bathroom. (Note the Coors Light. This is one of those fancy salons with free drinks...for the employees.)

I got me some Saran Wrap, some old paint brushes, and Tupperware for the dye, sectioned the hair and was ready to go! I painted the red on the bottom length of the hair from ends to about chin level, then switched to the medium red from chin to eye level, and finally brushed from there to the roots with brown. Between each about one inch section, I placed a sheet of Saran Wrap, and repeated the process until there was no hair left. The average processing time for the dyes was about 25-30 minutes and so...we waited.

Then comes the bloody massacre!

Psycho?

And then the blow out... You can see the ombre effect here. I was a little heavy handed on the "Splat" brand red in order to compensate for the inevitable fading. Better to be overly red at first than to have to redo the do again!