It’s really that I’ve gained weight and I’m trying to have fun with SOME part of my appearance, but this is bad, bad, bad.
I went in to get what the Hair Cuttery advertises as a $10 Color Zap. I had my hair colored very nicely there a month ago and it had faded. I had an event to go to in Chicago this weekend, so I went in for my ZAP.
They zapped me with the exact same color they used on my the last time, but it made my hair a dark, dead brown.
“Where’s the red?” I asked. The gal could see I was miserable.
“I think the last time you came in, you had all of those highlights. Now that they’re covered, it just didn’t take the way it should have.”
I’m not buying this AT ALL, but I said, “Well, it’s a dead brown and I’m depressed. Please fix it.”
OHHHHHHHHHHHH, she fixed it alright.
I now have pomegranate red hair. I have screaming raspberry lollipop red hair. I have “You’d Better Not Walk Out the Door Without A Carefully Considered Outfit And Make-Up Or You’ll Look Like A Bloated Old Hooker” Red Hair.
But that’s just my “identified issue,” as a friend helped me see. The real issue is that I am feeling lousy about myself and my appearance, and all of these hair misshaps are just icing on the cake.
THANK YOU SO MUCH to the lovely anonymous person who sent me the book Curly Girl, which has taught me how to deal with my officially formerly-undiagnosed wavy hair. I’m still confused by the whole new concept of not trying to blow dry it into submission, but I’m sort of enjoying the experimentation.
Please, no advice solicited on the low self-esteem and weight and food stuff. They are perrennial and I know what to do. Just sharing and hoping you’ll get something for yourself out of my struggles.
Oh that old identified issue thing. Deep stuff. Sounds familiar. I relate to this personally. I support you and will continue watching this space for any wisdom you might come by.
Oh, PB, poor baby! I sympathize with your hair story– I’ve had outrageously bad color experiences myself. I hope you can keep a sense of humor about it. (Sounds like great sermon fodder for coping with the unexpected, eh?)
Hey there,
I’ve been reading that Curly Girl stuff too. Cant believe how much easier it is. Instead of washing, conditioning, product-ing, blowing and still being annoyed with it all -I’m just conditioning and drying GENTLY with a tshirt (no terry cloth towels!). No product at all, and it looks so much better! At the retirment home today, one dear woman told me she didnt recognize me, I looked so pretty. Well, we’ll take our compliments where we can get them, and not read too deeply into THAT one!
Boy do I hear you. I wear my hair turquoise (yes, I’ve read your commentary on not having candy-colored hair, but as a writer whose ministry is confined to her friends, and is not ordained anywhere, I can get away with it) but I’ve dealt with the exact same things this summer. Misbehaving curl, weight gain, generalized unhappiness, and hair color fail (very lovely violet tips have faded to a most dreary greyish blue.)
Curly Girl is an awesome book, and definitely will help. I gave up the hair dryer ages ago, and haven’t once regretted it.
So anyway – you are not alone. And no unsolicited advice from me, just commiseration and a hope that a competent colorist can fix your hair.
I will save this post for all the times I am *bored* with my hair, convinced that I need some sort of boost when I feel insecure about looking “old”. I have mostly brown/dark blond hair now with some pronounced gray streaks. It looks fine on days when I feel good about myself. Curious…
Weight and hair — I hear ya. After looking at all kinds of hairstyles, I realized that what I was really looking for was a haircut that would make me not look fat.
When they invent that one …
Oh, dear PB, we love, love, love you–hooker hair and all! Alas, we’ve all been there, I fear, or at least most of us. Thank you for your refreshing candor and uproariously self-depricating humor. They only make your glorious, beautiful self shine ever more brilliantly. Really. They do. They do.
What fun you will have telling the story of the lollipop hair in years to come. For now, blech… I HATE it when stuff like that happens, which it does all too frequently to me.
A kiss of peace and solidarity to you, beloved clergy sister.
When they invent that haircut, Calista Flockhart will get it and disappear….
oh, I am SO with you. hair and shoes are the way I have fun when I’m not feelin’ the way the middle bits are lookin’. Lately, I’ve either gotten the Hedgehog On Steroids (distant and shorter cousin to the Flock Of Seagulls) or the Fluffy, Puffy Undefined Mess. When I stumbled upon this post, I was in the middle of combing through my old photos to find the cuts I LIKED so I could take them to the SAH-LON.
Solidarity Forever!
Things are always clearer (if not easier) when the real issue has been identified. Blessings….
I hate it when this happens! We’re totally with you.
When I don’t like anything else about my appearance, I always make sure to wear fun earrings. At least something sparkles!
Thanks Lizard Eater and Rev. Gidget for the mutually supportive rants. Most of the time, I like the silver that’s threading itself through my dark brown hair, but there are moments…. And I’d love a haircut that made me look thinner. :0)
Most days, I love my crewcut. But then my beloved 13-year-old niece says, “Oh, Auntie Louise! We were looking at old photos of you, back when your hair looked good and had style! I wish your hair still looked like that.”
Amazing how a junior high kid’s opinion can take me right back to those junior high feelings of blech.
“Bloated Old Hooker” is a style, right?
well at least bright reds fade fast. I hated it when I wanted lollipop hair because it would be just right…for about a week.
one thing I love about living in NYC is seeing women of many ages with crazy colored hair and working it. the pixie-cut granny with lagoon blue in the east village really made my day once. NEVER would I see such a thing in Dallas, I guess because the grannies with wild hair tendencies move to freakier climes
LOVE curly girl! Hope it helps you love your waves. 🙂
Speaking of hair, here’s a fun question. I have LONG (like mid-back long) curly hair, and have for years. My congregation has only known me with long hair, and I regularly get comments about its fabulosity. In about 10 days I am getting 10 inches cut off for locks of love (my birthday gift to the world for my 29th bday) and will have, for the first time in memory, seriously short hair. It’s possible I will have the shortest hair I have ever had…
Shall I tell the congregation ahead of time, the Sunday before, to prepare them? We share joys and concerns in worship and I could do it there. Or just shock them when I come back after the big chop?
Thoughts?
Meh. You have my sympathy. Hair is a big deal. No weight advice from here. If knowing what to do were doing (and that was all there was to it) we’d all be thin. Hang in there PB.
Curly girl, you say? I will have to check that out. For now, dear PB, may I just share that I took your hair photos – the ones you hated and thought you looked terrible in – to my stylist and said, “Can this work for me?” (Thanks to you, I decided to embrace my wavy hair.) She loved the look and now my hair is about 6 inches shorter than last month. Most importantly, I think the cut really works for me! (Will send pictures when I get back from vacation if you’d like) It’s a bit shorter than yours, but PB, you should know you’ve improved my sense of style and helped me take a major hair risk! Thanks for your great blog!
[LOVE hearing this!! Send photos! Smooch!! – PB]
LOVE YOU – and thank you for giving me a nice break here – catching up on old hair columns instead of finalizing my sermon slides – but I am curious after reading some of these hair ones.
You definitely seem to have good advice about appearance and budget and where to spend $, where not to, etc. So I guess I’m curious why you end up going to places like Hair Cuttery or MasterCuts? Having grown up most of my youth (until like 16) with a terrible bowl cut and bangs from one of these places, I pretty much know now that I have to suck it up and pay bigger bucks when it comes to the every-other-month cut/highlight/color or whatever I do that month. Seems like an area where you might splurge as well, so I guess I’m curious! (Not to mention that my hair grows SUPER DUPER SLOW – so I’m terrified of going anywhere that I might get a bad cut/color. It could take the rest of my lifetime to grow it out. haha!)