My Blue Hair

I’ve always been super adventurous with my hair. It grows fast and is naturally curly, so keeping it short has been my primary strategy for taming the beast. Flat iron? Ain’t got no time for that!

For the past several months I’ve kept it quite short and platinum. The natural color is a dirty blonde, no gray yet (as far as I can tell – I’ve been highlighting and bleaching it since high school. My hairdresser Andrea says she hasn’t seen any gray hairs yet though!) Luckily DH doesn’t care one way or the other what I do with my hair. That’s actually how I ended up with the short cut I have now. He jokingly told me I should shave it, so I asked Andrea how short I could go without looking butch. But I digress.

A couple of weekends ago it needed a trim so I asked Andrea if I should go with a more autumn color. Like wine, oxidized, brown, rust, or something. She said she really prefers me platinum, but maybe I could mix things up by adding a bit of color. She showed me her bag of color and asked me to choose between teal and red. I loved the teal and so we decided to go that route. She did two foils of teal and the rest were bleached.

When the foils came off, I was shocked. What I had envisioned was a small streak or two of teal. Here on my head was a huge blue blotch! I think my face betrayed my thoughts because she said, “If it’s too much we can trim some of it out. Here.” She then proceeded to thin the blue blotch.

“If it’s too much, you can use dishwashing liquid to tame it,” she advised. I gulped. What would they say at work? It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I even texted my sister on my way home and sent her a photo. She replied, “sorry, I’m laughing over here. You always were so adventurous!”

Even worse? I was going to be representing my organization at a conference at the Mariott Marquis in New York City later that week! I tried styling it so as to minimize the area of blue. I bought a wide head band hoping maybe I could hide it. No such luck.

On Monday the executive director stopped by my office and his eyes widened. “Saint Patrick’s Day?” He asked. “Nope, Halloween,” I said. Later in the day at an all staff meeting he used me as an example. We had to turn to a partner and say, “I notice ______. I think __________. I will pray that ______.” Of course he said, “I notice that you have green hair.” I don’t remember the rest but I didn’t correct him–even though it was teal, not green.

The next day I flew to New York. A TSA agent told me that she liked my hair. I was surprised. “Thanks,” I said. When I checked in to the hotel, the desk clerk said, “I see you like turquoise.” Um, yes. Throughout the conference, though, I looked people in the eye and smiled. I seemed to get their attention more than usual. People smiled and said hello.

Soon I forgot that I even had blue in my hair except for when I walked by a mirror. The rest of the event was uneventful.

Friday we had a charity wine fest to attend so I got dressed up in a Gwynnie Bee dress (above) and asked DH to take a photo. I loved the dress! And, I loved how it showed off my shoulder tattoos and blue hair. I had no idea what kind of a reaction I was going to get at the fancy event. But, everyone was very friendly. At one point a very well dressed lady put her hand on my shoulder, leaned in, and said, “I LOVE your hair!” I smiled and said thank you.

I made the photo above into my Facebook profile photo. Surprisingly, I had a TON of people “like” it. I was surprised at the positive comments, not the “hey your hair is blue” comments that I anticipated.

Now, just as the blue is growing on me, I find it fading like the autumn leaves. Either that or I’m getting used to it, I’m not sure. I don’t know if I will do it again, but for now I’m actually enjoying a bit of blue in my hair.