After this post, I might need tHAIRapy

“Okay, first, you win for Best Blogger Hair! Don’t argue with me.” 

Reading that in my comments section this past June was traumatic for me.  I am not programmed to graciously accept a compliment.

Take it back or I’ll fight you.  

How’d you get that black eye?

I told Em she looked nice.

I know, violence is never the answer to a compliment. But, as a minimum, I WILL argue with you, or at LEAST tell you the flaws you might have missed.

Sure, if you need to know which way is up, just ask my hair…the ones on top always point the way.

or

Thanks, and if you ever need your tub cleaned, I have two scrub brushes in front of my ears where sideburns grow.

I realize that these are traitorous, ungrateful statements. Because the truth is I actually do have fairly cooperative hair.

But nearly every day, I thank the Good Hair Fairy for the blessing.

UNFORTUNATELY, my early hair story was more like a Tragedy. (If you’re drinking coffee while reading this, fair warning: you should stop!)

You may remember from high school English class that a Tragedy isn’t just a sad story. A Tragedy in literature is defined as a genre that focuses around a character who usually suffers greatly and fails as a result of their own flaws.

Suffer greatly? I don’t know if being an oblivious nerd can be categorized as actual suffering, but wow, talk about failing as the result of my own flaws… From home perms, bowl cuts, train wreck hair styles, I was highly complicit in crimes against my hair. There’s also some very strong finger pointing at my accomplice, Patricia, known affectionately around the house as “Mom”.

Patricia, your daughter looks JUST like you. Who’d have known a twelve-year-old would look so glamorous wearing LADY HAIR!

Allow me to say that–at the time–I thought I looked VERY fashionable.

What. A. Dish.

While searching for pictures, I came across this gem of my mom and me from my eighth-grade graduation… and as much as I love that woman, someone should have called Family Services for popularity abuse.

Well, at least we definitively know the answer to “was Em a cool girl?”

Perhaps the four-month-old compliment from June was foreshadowing, or maybe it was a prelude to this month’s “Where Bloggers Live” topic: Hair Care Routine.

Whatever the reason, here’s mine: I wash my hair every other day with whatever purple shampoo I liked at the supermarket. Once a week, I condition. I generally air dry my hair, which was poker straight my entire life UNTIL my offspring factory closed and I ended up with hair that looks like I sleep in braids. Some days I style it, some days I don’t: a little fluff, a little spray, and then I’m calling it a day.

Generally, my most consisent style has been “the back up plan”: half up, clipped in the back. I have used the back up plan for decades:

Despite the fact that I adore the guy who cuts my hair and have been a client for at least 30 years, I don’t like going to the salon. It seems to take FOR. EV. ER. I used to have my hair highlighted…and looking back at pictures it was tooo blonde. I tried NOT coloring when my girls were teens and my dad, of all people, gave me the thumbs down. (Thanks, Dad. I’m not scarred. At least that’s what I tell my therapist.). Maybe if I looked more like my mother…bahahaha.

Mr also liked blonde hair (men and blonde hair…🙄 🤷🏻‍♀️) so I went back to highlighting and eventually home coloring, but it seemed that I was always chasing my “line of demarcation.” So, about two years ago, I mentioned to my family that I was thinking of letting gray do it’s thing.

They were less than enthused..

But I went ahead and did it anyway. A colorist jump-started the transition by giving me a hundred million strands of white highlights all over my head, give or take a few million, followed by an allover lowlight in a color close to my natural brown hair.

Those whites eventually yellowed, hence the purple shampoo. The purple toner cuts the brassiness and cools the yellow. Otherwise it’s back to the salon for an allover toner treatment.

Did I mention I don’t have the patience for the salon?

Ironically, I just had my hair cut yesterday. God bless Marty, he made it SO painless! For the first time ever, he cut my hair completely dry. No highlights or color. No shampoo, no blow out, no styling. CUT, ZHUZH and GO. It was like a miracle. Best ever day at the salon.

I hope you like how it turned out…but if you do, PLEASE DON’T TELL ME!

Be sure to check out all the coif chat happening with:

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own  
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style