Lessons I’ve Learned From My Mom
As a teen I was the home-base for alterna-hair and knew the best way to get my Hispano-black hair to take just about any color on the face of the earth. A natural born love affair with bleach began when I was 13. A simple caramel streak evolved into a face-framing swatch of platinum inviso-hair (you know where the bleach has turned the hair into see through blue, which is what happens when black hair is bleached down to it’s base. All pigment is removed and only the shaft of the hair remains).
The bleach was my gateway dye. There was purple, koolaid red, blue, endless shades of brown/mahogany, jet black (the biggest mistake), orange (aka what happens when Jet Black is bleached out), almost my natural brown (over the orange), and then the evolution to a blonde. I started with a variety of highlights in caramel and honey. I ended with BLONDE hair.
What I’ve learned about all of this is that I am a lazy person and would prefer to not have to touch up the roots on my Crystal Gayle-growing hair. The black roots with blonde hair took quite a toll on me…and my wallet. The one thing I learned from the Great Blonding of 2001-2002 is to never try to make your perfectly and expensively dyed hair a DIY job. I finally grew tired and poor and cut all that shit off. I went short and back to brown, with the vow to never dye again.
Throughout my entire decade of hair abuse, my mother would shake her head and cluck her tongue. She loved my long dark hair. She loved my color, and now, on the other side of life, I do see why. The color is nice. The natural highlights are nice. The texture is nice. I spent time and money messing up my hair, and part of the reason was just to piss off my mom. My mom, who never applied a faux finish to her hair, even when the gray starting coming in, not even a dark rinse that would wash out when she was re-married, who would beg and plead for me to just leave my hair alone, who on occasion asks me if I am still dying my hair because she’s forgotten what my real color is, was right.
Now that I’ve reached the ripe old age of 28 I’ve started to find gray hairs. Three gray hairs to be exact, all growing in the same spot off my temple. Even in my grayitude I am so fucking trendy: I am going gray in a streak. More importantly, I am beginning to understand my mother’s approach. We may have different reasons, but the results will be the same, I’m not going to dye my grays away.
I am nothing if not lazy.