Changing

Reading through my favorite blogs this morning, I read something in Claire's blog that reminded me of something I did many years ago.

Claire says she plans to dye her hair tonight - apparently a bright, flamboyant red color no less. And, thinking back to when I got an idea I wanted my hair frosted, it brought back some memories I thought I'd share here today.

I don't remember the exact date -heck, I don't even remember what month it was when I got this hair-brained idea in my head. It was winter -that much I do remember though - of 1965. Yes, I told you at the onset this story took place a LOOOONNNNNGGGG time ago.

My hair color is a dark brown and for some reason or other -like many others I suppose - I got this idea that it would be soooo very neat and nice and pretty and of course, sexy too if my hair had these lovely frosted colors in it - a little blonde, a little darker blonde shade here and there. Oh yeah, it would be, absolutely, the cat's meow!

Yeah, right.

I had seen these kits in the stores where you could apply this junk to your hair and presto, magic, you had frosted it yourself and saved beaucoup bucks at the beauty shop having a professional do the job. Since my life back then was a poor, financially speaking, as it is today - seems to be a thread throughout my life, apparently - I decided to take the el cheapo route -of course - and be a "do-it-yourselfer."

I bought the kid and knowing how impatient I was then - still am most of the time today too - I probably read the instructions but probably not fully. Gee, imagine that, huh?

I don't remember each step of the procedure but you do have to bleach out a good bit of the hair when your normal hair color is the shade mine is. And that is where I ran into problems.

By 9 p.m., on a very, very snowy Sunday night, I realized my frost job wasn't going to be the dream hair style I had imagined.

My hair had become four shades, yes but not the way it was supposed to be.

At the top of my head, and for about maybe two inches or so, it was white-blonde. Then, there was a layering of yellow blonde color that encompassed an inch, maybe two of my hair. Moving on down, the next inch or two was orange - yes, bright, bright orange. And the rest of the hair, which was, thankfully short but not THAT short, was the normal dark brown.

Talk about looking like a clown! Wow! I sure did.

The problem then became one of an emergency situation too as I knew there was no way I could possibly go to work the next day with my hair looking like that. I also knew, based on how tender my scalp was at that point there was no way I could get a hair dye and immediately recolor my hair back to the normal dark brown shade either.

And, adding to those problems was also the time of night, the weather - it was snowing very, very hard by then and the nearest drugstore to my roommates and my apartment had closed for the evening. There was an all-night drugstore open at the Marlow Heights Mall though but that was about five miles from our apartment and guess who didn't have a car then either?

I took a chance (after tightly wrapping a towel around my head) and knocked on our next-door neighbor's door and begged our neighbor, Pam, to ask her husband if he would please drive me over to the Marlow Heights Mall so I could get something to cover up the mess I'd made of my hair. Fortunately for me, he took pity on me and drove me over there where I bought a package of dark brown hair dye to apply to my hair later that week and two cans of hair coloring that you could spray on - just exactly what I needed in an emergency situation like that had become.

For the next 3-4 days at work, my boss harrassed the living daylights out of me, teasing me about my lovely roots and the colors that still managed to peek through from the spray-on stuff till I dared to put the dark hair dye on to cover up my big goof-up frost job.

That episode pretty much cooled my heels for several years on the idea of changing my hair color again.

Well, that is until about 1972, early 1973 when I decided to take that step again. Except this time, I decided to let a professional do the job. And, it did turn out pretty decent. Well, at least I liked it.

About three years later, I again decided to get my hair frosted and yes, again I went to a beautician to have it done. Again, I liked it very much.

But the strangest thing happened both times I got my hair frosted by a professional hairdresser. I got pregnant shortly after each time I had my hair frosted!

It just so happens that I was also "on a diet" both times that happened too so I decided then and there that never again would I ever get my hair frosted at the same time I was on a diet. There had to be a link there, don't 'cha know?

Now since I tend to be "dieting" (hard to believe that one if you'd see me now - ha ha) all the time, I have never taken that chance of getting my hair colored or frosted since then. Way too risky in my opinion!

Now, I let my Scottish ancestry (el cheapo) take control and save the funds I would have spent on hair dyes or frostings and just let Mother Nature take over and do the frost jobs for me now, for free!

Sometimes, there is something distinguished about the "salt and pepper" look, ya know.