Hair today, gone tomorrow…

by Muuka · Published July 10, 2011 · Updated November 16, 2014

Yesterday, I decided to dye my hair.

Obviously, it wasn’t an on-the-spot decision. I had to get the dye at some stage right? Yesterday was the day I decided in the morning,

“Feck it, I’m dyeing my hair in an hour”

I’ve been thinking about doing this for the last two months actually. When I first started my dreadlocks, my goal was to grow them till they reached my bum. Just for the hell of it, but I got slightly bored when my hair went past my shoulders two years ago, and decided to bleached the ends to jazz my look up a bit. I know that sentence took like two minutes to write, but the actual process was a nightmare.

Initially, I wanted to dye my hair a deep, rich dark red. However, being a dye virgin, I didn’t realise what a pain in the butt dark hair was. I bought red henna and spent a whole four hours meticulously applying the dye, then sitting waiting for it to take effect, washed it out only to find that my hair was still black. Bummer! So the next weekend I asked a girl I know who works in a salon, what I was doing wrong. Apparently, I was supposed to bleach my hair first to strip it of all colour, and then dye the hair red. This, when I thought about it, made a lot of sense and made me feel so foolish. However, I’m used to this. I pride myself in being really logical about things yet sometimes I even scare myself at how stooopid I can be.

I went into boots and, not wanting to take any chances, bought “ultimate platinum blonde” hair dye. Because of the hydrogen peroxide, I didn’t really want to take forever applying it so I asked Krys if he would do it for me.

This is the one thing I love most about Krys. I can literally ask him to do anything. More often than not, he will oblige, no matter how outlandish the request, and very, very few times, he’ll laugh and ask, in that way he has,

My dye hair days

“Muuka, you’re not serious?”

And I’ll quickly try and cover my blushes while he laughs his head off.

When I asked for help in dyeing my hair, I was expecting the latter reaction to be honest, but he just got up and asked what he had to do. We spend four hours with the windows wide open for air, dying the ends of my dreadlocks. Krys meticulously applied the dye and forty five minutes later, success! The ends were finally blond. I really liked that look. The blond ends brushed my shoulders and gave all sorts of lovely tones against my darker skin.

Last year after Roz was born, I was sick of my hair. It was heavy, it was getting in my way whenever I had to pick her up, the blond bits weren’t doing anything for my overall look anymore and I just wanted it gone. By that stage, it was actually halfway down my back but was just so heavy that I decided, to hell with my original goal. So again, I asked a very long suffering Krys if he would cut it for me. The conversation went something along the lines of,

“Muuka, it’s a big decision”

“I know, Krys”

“I just don’t want you regretting it tomorrow if I cut your hair now”

“I won’t. I just want it gone!”

“But it’s taken you a long time to grow it and I might botch it up”

“Krys, its dreadlocks, not rocket science. Just go one dread at a time”

I was ready to scream. He told me to sleep on it and if I felt the same way about it the next day, he’d cut it for me. I took his advice and slept on it mainly to let him sleep on it too. I had spent that whole morning looking at pictures of me when my dreads were shorter and how cute I looked and I definitely wanted them gone, so sleep wasn’t going to change my mind.

My favourite short hair look – 2007

The next evening when Roz was asleep, snip snip, and the hair was gone.

The lightness I felt!! I tell you, I know how Rapunzel must have felt when her hair was cut. Absolute relief. As the Irish say, I didn’t know myself.

But now, half a year later, I’m bored again. I was tempted to just cut my dreadlocks off completely and go au naturel with a big ol’ ‘fro but I’ve never been a great one for taking care of my hair and I’d probably look like a loon within a week. For Roz’s sake, I know I have to learn something about hair care or risk my kid being the one laughed at in class for having a shaggy mop on her head, but I still have at least a year to wait…I hope.

So anyhoo, I spent most of last week looking and reading about black hair care and decided it was a bit too labour intensive for me. Especially since I live in Ireland and am yet to see one black hair salon that I would trust with my precious locks. Hence the decision to try something different.

I was going to dye my whole head blonde this time, then remembered my Sister’s partner telling her when she wanted to do the same, that she would look like a pint of Guinness. Hmmmm. I didn’t want to have that image running through my head each time i walked out the house.

So I decided I’d strip the colour, then dye it red, as per the original plan two years ago. I bought another “ultimate platinum blonde” dye kit and yesterday morning, asked Krys to clear his schedule to mind Roz for an hour while I did the deed.

I followed all the instructions and had a pair of latex gloves (not for me, that cheap crap you find in the box), wore a face mask against the peroxide, and carried a book with me so I wouldn’t be bored and started. I made sure to rub the mixture all over my head and into the dreads and…Oh yeah…half an hour later, I could see the colour changing. Woohoo!

I washed my hair, showered and looked in the mirror.

Bugger!

The ends were definitely not the luscious blonde I was expecting…in fact, they hadn’t changed that much in the front at all.

I bent forward and looked at the back and okay, there was blondish hair there…at least blonder than the front at any rate. I decided that maybe as the service provider and the customer rolled into one, I may be a bit harsh with the evaluation, so I’d better go ask Krys.

I affected a devil-may-care attitude, strode into the living room and said,

“So? What do you think?”

Krys looked at my hair and said the one thing I hate him saying,

“The hair?” I nodded. “Did you want it to look like that?”

My heart sank. Yup, it was about as bad as I thought. Maybe even worse.

I decided to throw in the towel and called the hair salon in the village. They said they’ll try and fix it, so I have an appointment for ten thirty Monday morning. I wonder whether they’ll be able to fix this and how much it’ll cost.

Come to think of it, since leaving home ten years ago, I’ve only been in a hair salon once, and that was to start my dreads in Colorado. I’m kind of looking forward to getting pampered again months of looking after my hair. I must say that since this will be my first time in a non-black hair salon, I’m really anxious that they don’t mess it up.

About an hour after I made the appointment, I got really nervous and said to Krys,

“You know what? Maybe it’s not too late to cancel. I can run into the city tomorrow, get another kit and try again, this time really concentrating on the ends? What do you think?”

Do you know what that mean man’s answer was?

“I’d keep the appointment. Your hair looks like something leaked onto your head in the storage room.”