That'll Teach Me To Listen To My Mother

A couple weeks ago, as I was about to walk out the door to go to work, my mom looked at me (and keep in mind, this is at 6:15am and I am not a morning person) and said, "Wow, you're really getting grey!"

Yep, just what you want to hear from your mother first thing in the morning. Now I will admit that I've never been one to color my hair. To be honest, it just seems like so much maintenance and time that I don't have. My mom, on the other hand, has been coloring her hair forever and doesn't actually know the true color of her hair anymore.

That little comment stuck with me. And now that I have a little more time on my hands since I'm staying home for a bit, I decided to do something about it. It could be fun to color my hair and have a little bit different look for a bit.

Having never done this before, I decided to find one that is not a permanent color. The last thing I want to do is have a disaster on my hand until my hair grows out. I looked around, and I was shocked at how hard it was to find non-permanent hair coloring. But I was persistent, and I found some that claims to last for a month.

The hard part was finding a color. I didn't want to go blonde. Or black. Or red. Or really anything with a major difference. I wanted to find something that had a little bit of a hint of color and highlight more than what mine does naturally these days. I finally settled on one that was a mild auburn. It was fairly close to my natural color but a bit brighter.

I read all the instructions and followed the preparations. As I poured the color from bottle one into bottle two, I was reassured that it was a lovely brown color. I put on the gloves and shook. I was supposed to shake until it was thickened, but who knows how long that takes. I kept shaking and shaking and finally decided that had to be long enough.

On went the dye, and I somehow managed to not get it on anything other than my hair. I consider that to be a minor miracle. I set the timer for eight minutes, figuring that it had taken me a minute or two to apply everything, and I was to leave it on for ten minutes.

Once I heard that magical beep, I began to rinse. I added the small amount of water to my hair and worked it into a lather. Next step was to rinse until the water ran clear. Yep, that's when I realized we might have a problem.

You see, the water was running purple. And I don't mean mostly brown with a little color, I mean full on Northwestern purple with a hint of red. My first instinct was to hyperventilate, but I managed to hold that back. As much as I love purple - and yes, it's my favorite color - having purple hair wasn't really what I was going for.

Every splatter against the shower walls freaked me out more, and I quickly used the gloves to wipe away those traces - because if I can't see them, it didn't happen, right? The water finally ran clean, much later than I thought it should have.

I cautiously peeked at my wet hair, and it appeared to be much the same as it was before. Of course any dark hair that's wet looks the same, but hey - it made me feel better.

Then I looked at the gloves I'd been using first to apply and then to rinse my hair. That's when I actually did start hyperventilating.

This doesn't do a good job of showing how truly red the gloves were (I so need a good camera!), but this doesn't look like the brown with a bit of a brighter hint that the package had promised, does it?

As I dried my hair, the sunlight streaming into the window showed me exactly what I had on my hands, errr my head. It was a gorgeous color. For Sharon Osbourne. In fact, I think this might well actually be her color.

Ironically, I heard my mom come into my house at this point, as she wanted to take Little Miss to gymnastics. I walked downstairs, and she started laughing. This is not a good sign. Once she recovered, she asked whether I was trying to go that red. Umm no.

Once Little Miss got off the bus, we moved into the kitchen, where I had the blinds closed. The good news? When I'm not in the sun, it doesn't look nearly so red. In fact, it's actually a decent color. I'm working on staying inside in bad lighting for the next month.

See? It's cloudy and rainy and yucky right now, so the red isn't coming out very well but you at least get the idea. Sorta. I should really know better, shouldn't I?

The friends I've seen in the intervening two days have yet to comment at all on my color change. And you know what that means - if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all as my mommy taught me.

Twenty-seven more hair washes, and I'll be back to normal. I hope. Apparently my virgin hair really liked the dye, so I'm hoping this doesn't mean it will last longer for me, too. In the meantime, does anyone have a cute hat I can borrow?