#147 - Hair Color Blindness

This past week I decided to let my daughter's friend cut my hair. Well, I didn't actually DECIDE to have her do my hair, the story goes more like...my youngest made sure I went.

Stefie's friend, Kirsten, is going to school to be a hair technician or a hair stylist or a beautician...I don't know what the politically correct term is these days because it changes so often that I can't keep up. I just know that I appreciate a person who can cut all of these unruly strands of hair in such a way that it gives the illusion that the hair is working out a buddy system to look "in place."

To make this entire situation clear, it needs to be understood that I rarely get my hair done. It's been about a year since I last had a professional cut. But, I do get restless with my dead ends and my tendency to grow a lion's mane is strong, so I purchased a pair of scissors strictly for hair-cutting from Sally's Beauty Supply and went to town cutting my own hair.

Cutting my own hair is nothing new for me. I've done this off and on throughout the years. Since I don't have tons of layers and my hair is naturally curly, I figure that any mistakes I make will be...well...hidden within the masses.

So, about a month ago, I snipped and snipped until about two inches were gone. Back up...since I wasn't actually measuring and I didn't have a set of standards to follow with each snip, it only FELT as if I had cut about two inches...all the way around my hair, evenly. HA!

Then, this past week, my youngest daughter, Stefie, stared at me as I stood there in the living room with my hair in a  ponytail. One part of my ponytail had a segment of hair dripping down much lower than the rest of the ponytail, like a straggler section or hair that had suddenly grown about four inches longer than the rest of the bundle of hair. Stefie's eye got really big and she said, "WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR?"

I reached up and touched the ponytail, aware of the dipping part that I could not straighten out so that it would blend in with the rest of the ponytail and I said, "Well, I cut my hair and it would seem that I didn't do such a straight job of it. But, it's not too bad."

I stood there watching Stefie's expression as her mouth dropped open, and I asked with more insecurity,"It IS okay, isn't it? I mean...I cut it a couple of weeks before we had our big Thanksgiving gathering at the house."

Stefie replies, "You have got to be kidding me."

I pulled on the strands that hung low and separate from the rest of the hair in the ponytail and I said, "I can go get the scissors and you can just snip this part off for me."

Stefie continues to look at me as if I have lost my mind. Then, she whips out her IPhone and starts furiously text messaging someone. She looks up and says, "Mom, you have an appointment next week to see my friend Kirsten who is going to beauty school; no one can do worse than what you've done, so you're going to go see her and get a real haircut."

So, I did go to see her friend and Kirsten actually LISTENED to me; she didn't give me reverse angle layers that hang terribly with my curly hair; she didn't do the criss-cross-chop-chop to my ends in fancy scissored finger-work action; she didn't cut off another five inches off my hair, she simply did what I asked...she trimmed it up in a straight cut fashion while taking some bulk off from around my face.

Unbelievable! My face curtains are tailored so that I can SEE again!!

She didn't give me a freaky haircut that hairstylists normally love to do and that leave my curly hair screaming in all directions. She gave me a simple face framing cut and my curls have been so very happy and falling perfectly upon themselves instead of hanging in chaos.

To top it off, Stefie's friend Kirsten says to me, "If you get your hair colored, or get low-lights, or get high-lights, then you will give me a huge boost in my standing toward me reaching my required studio hours...and we can get rid of all of that grey hair!"

Gasp! What? You don't like my grey hair Kirsten?

Yes, the bright fluorescent lights of the hair studio had indeed pointed to my white strands of hair. I told her, "Well, we maybe can do some low-lights...put some brown back into my hair."

Kirsten makes a funny expression, "Brown?"

I reply, "Yes, I'm a brunette, so maybe we can put some dark brown streaks back through my hair to tone down the white hair."

Kirsten looks at me with a frown, "Well, I don't think we should put brown in your hair because, you are not a natural brunette, your hair is color is in the blond family --- on the dark end of blond, but still, you are an ash blond."

Kirsten proceeds to hold up hair swatches against my natural hair color so she can prove my color to be on the blond spectrum.

I look at the swatches, pull them back, squint my eyes, put the swatches back up to my head and do this a few more times in disbelief. I didn't believe her, the swatches must be wrong.

She gets an instructor to come over and talk with me about how I should not go darker, but that I should go lighter because it is more compatible to my natural hair color...as if I had spent a few days out at the beach. I still wasn't sold. So, the second instructor came over to give a third opinion that my hair shade is indeed in the blond category and getting high-lights would be very close to my natural color, but going darker would be a huge contrast.

How come no one ever told me before that I am an actual ash blond instead of a dark brunette? Why have I never figured out that I have hair color blindness?

Okay, I think I better listen to the THREE people standing here along with the TWO OTHER associates...five hair professionals are telling me that the hair swatches are the real deal, so I start to shift my thinking around a bit.

I'm a blond. Does this mean that I'll suddenly start to have more fun?

Hmmm. I think not.

Regardless, I let Kirsten high-light my hair before she cut it and I walked out very happy. I didn't have the blond look since much of my own hair color was kept, she just weaved a few strands of high-lights through my hair and it just made it look pretty much the same, except the "high-lights" were more blond instead of white. Interesting.

My hair is a little wet still right here -- on the way home
from the hair school, but at least I still have my hair!!

As for Kirsten...I found it refreshing for her to hold such firm, knowledgeable opinions in such an early stage of her budding career, in spite of this woman who tried to tell her how to do her job.

And, I liked her honesty. Her honesty might prevent me from grabbing the special scissors and pretending that I am a beautician any time soon.

It's nice to see this young woman following her natural abilities to do hair. She's good and I'm glad that my daughter was horrified enough by my own scissor-hands to make me this appointment.


Two curly haired girls, but Stefie is on her way
to the airport to fly to Arizona and still has wet hair!

Thank you Stefie.

Thank you for not letting me walk around with the lopsided pony-tail for more than the month that I had already done it.

Stefie has also threatened to throw those hair scissors away.

We watch out for each other like that around here...