My Hairstory

The summer before I left for college, I was seventeen years old and I decided that I was going to dye my hair. I’d soon be leaving home, going to a new place where no one would know me, and I wanted to reinvent myself. Nobody at college would know that the real me was a socially awkward, ugly, fat, unpopular nerd — or at least that was how I thought of myself (and I was convinced that the entire world was intensely watching and judging me, pointing and laughing and hating me. Ah, how tiny our worlds are when we’re teenagers).

I wanted my new mature college friends to think I was cool and funny and outgoing. Maybe even a little new wave (or “goth” as it was starting to be called). And changing my hair color was step one of my grand plan to be somebody else. Looking different might make me feel different, and I’d be able to act accordingly.

The question was: red, or black? I loved red hair, had always wanted red hair, was secretly in love with a boy who had red hair. But black… that would be intense. Dramatic. I’d get noticed, and I’d definitely be seen as “one of those Cure fans,” which I was. But with my natural curly blond hair and nearly six-foot stature, I was about as far from a waifish black-clad eyeliner-wearing Goth chick as one could be.

I tried out black hair once with a can of nonpermanent Halloween hairspray paint. As you can see from the blond traces in this photo, I needed far more than the one can that I had. This was my Robert Smith costume. I actually went out in public dressed like this, wearing a black turtleneck and black bodysuit with suspender-style straps and stirrup leggings. Seriously. It was the ’80s. I guess I was trying to pretend I didn’t care what people thought of me when actually it was all I could think about. I do give myself credit for having the balls to try it, though.

In the end, I was too chickenshit to put permanent black dye on my hair, so I went with red.

I have had various shades of red hair for the past seventeen years, ranging from light strawberry blonde to dark coppery auburn. A couple years ago, I got highlights for the first time and have been getting those ever since. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Sometime in the late ’90s or early ’00s, Kathryn helped me attempt to give myself highlights. I guess we did something wrong because they didn’t take, except on the shaved part of the back of my head where we just slapped all the extra lightening cream just for grins.

As of yesterday, I have chocolate brown hair with light blond streaks. This is a first for me. I’ve been leaning towards brown for about a year now, and my red shades have been getting darker in the interim.

I’m extremely happy with it. I think that dark brown looks natural on me, which is not surprising considering that I look a lot like my mom, who has dark brown hair.

I don’t color my hair for attention anymore (thank god I grew out of that stage). And it’s not really to cover up the gray, of which there is more and more every time I look. In fact, I wouldn’t mind the gray showing through. I just don’t like my natural dull dark blond. I suppose at some point I’ll quit coloring my hair. I’m not sure that I want to be 70 years old with a dye job. We’ll see how it goes, I guess.