“Oh no!” was not what I wanted to hear as my friend took my hair out of the foils that she had just put bleach on 30 minutes before. January 2012 was the first time I ever let hair dye touch my hair. My mom had always told me to never dye my hair because it was so pretty and dying it would only damage it, and then I would have to deal with annoying roots. Little did I know, she was right.
The foils came off of my hair, and after a quick shower, I stepped out and saw the light streaks in my hair. The best part was that I decided to go through with getting my hair colored only two days before I moved back into my dorm, my freshman year. That next spring semester would be the next of two hair dying experiences. First, I bleached and dyed a strip bright purple on a back section of my hair. It quickly faded to red, then a weird orange shade. That was a fail. Then, since my previous streaks of blonde started growing out, and looking a tad…yellow, I decided to go with a box dye.
Now, knowing me, I was never one to have the guts to go through with something like dying my hair. But after I went through with the blonde streaks, I could do anything! My friend and I walked confidently into CVS and spent a good 10-15 minutes comparing dyes, colors, formulas and most importantly prices, because we are in college here. Once I picked the perfect shade of brunette, with some red highlights mixed in, we were off. The smell was probably the worst part. After the application, waiting, then rinsing, the color came out pretty dark, and covered up the blonde parts. I was satisfied. After that, my hair started having some breakage, and was pretty dry, due to the past dye jobs. However, the horrible yellow streaks had finally blended into my hair so I just let my hair grow out, and I used hair products to help with the damage.
Just about 3 weeks ago, a co-worker and I were talking about hair colors, and on a whim, decided that we were going to save up our hard earned money and dye our hair. She had a previous blonde streak dye experience, so we were both on the same page and knew what we wanted. This time, we went professional. After about 70 pins on my “Hair Color Ideas” board on Pinterest, I finally narrowed down the color I wanted. I described the perfect shade to the hairdresser at Bubbles as a “Burgundy Plum” color but I still wanted to be a brunette.
Overall, the experience was a bit nerve wrecking, but I could not contain my excitement from the first swipe of hair dye onto my hair. I know for a fact that I could not have done it without the support of my friends and my family afterwards. I’m beyond glad that I went through with the experience and I am loving the color. At the end of the day, it’s just hair. We are only young once, so go get that cartilage piercing, get that tattoo you’ve been wanting since you were 16, or dye your hair! It will fade and grow back, and there are millions of products out there to keep all of your hair from falling out. So, GO FOR IT!