Big Changes  − 10 January, 2008

So I colored my hair. My husband doesn’t think it’s as big a deal as I do, but I look entirely different now.
I’d been considering changing my hair for a while now. I was feeling kind of washed out as a blonde, and after going home at Christmas and seeing my darker-haired sisters, I was really leaning towards making a change.
Years ago, when I met my husband I was a redhead – a dark auburn – kind of like light-through-red-wine or garnet – and I really liked it. It was dramatic and saucy and truly people do treat you a little differently based on your hair color. As a redhead, I was respected and automatically assumed to be sharp and intelligent.
My natural color is a dark blonde/light brown with a lot of warmth in it. In the sun it naturally gets sun-streaked , though, these last 7 years I have been helping the highlights along professionally. Left “unweathered” my natural color can tend to look mousy, so I didn’t want to dye it a muddy shade and look frumpy.
So I figured I would go back to that garnet shade I used to maintain back in the day. Going to the pharmacy to get my haircolor, I was disappointed to find that L’Oreal no longer makes “Les Rouges Romantiques” – the red hair dye line I had used a decade ago. So I had to guesstimate what colors the line had morphed in to. I selected what I thought was good and went home to radically change myself.
It looked like there was a violent murder in my bathtub. As I rinsed it out, the color stained the caulking in the tub pink. It also turned my highlights pink. Though it was not too bad wet, it was way too fake-looking dry. I made an emergency run for a dark auburn-brown shade to tone down the vibrant red my long hair had become. At least I hadn’t missed any spots.
So now it is the color I want. I know it will fade quite a bit over the next few weeks and I will have to re-dye it to maintain the color – reds are the hardest shade to get in and out of the hair according to my stylist – but it’s worth it.
It’s long – it reaches my waist dry - in pretty decent condition despite all the fooling around I do with it, wavy, baby-fine, though there’s lots of it, so it looks thicker than it is, and I am happy with the results.
Last night, speaking with my husband about it, that men perceive such changes much differently than a woman does. I see it as a life-changing thing as it alters my perception of who I am as well as affecting how others interact with me. My husband sees it as no different than if I had trimmed my bangs. But I do look totally different.
My skin looks pale (a little sallow as I haven’t been out in the sun in a while) and my eyes look lighter than they did when I was blonde – they are a medium reddish-brown (almost the same exact shade as my hair is now) with dark blue edging the iris. On my driver’s license they are called “brown” but technically, with the mix of brown and the blue rim, I think they are “hazel.”
I have some freckles and fair skin, so I think I can pull off red again (though, given the intensity of the shade it is obvious it is color-enhanced) and most of my make-up is neutral. It gives me a big boost to see the new me in the mirror. I am like a new woman. I like that feeling, and I can’t wait to see how it feels to be a redhead again. Spicy. Saucy. A little naughty and a lot fiery. A license to be fresh. I think I am going to like this new me.