To me, being blonde is more than just a hair color that invites a bevy of unflattering stereotypes...it is an identifier, a statement, and above all, a way of life! Being blonde makes me feel happy, fresh, and youthful. Now granted I am sixteen, but I didn’t feel the same way about my natural hair color, which is a dull brunette shade. Since getting my hair to my current shade of blonde, there is not a thing I would change. As a child I had always felt my mousy brown mane wasn’t meant for me; I was destined for a lighter, brighter hue! So after years of convincing, my mother finally let me take the first step towards attaining my ideal hair color in the eighth grade.
THE BEGINING
I will never forget the moment when, after much consideration, my mom said yes to a certain rite of passage for me; letting me get highlights! We were driving, and she turned into a Target parking lot, handed me a ten dollar bill, and told me to pick out a highlighting kit; but nothing too crazy, of course. I came back with a box of Revlon Frost and Glow...the anticipation was driving me nuts...I just wanted to go home and go blonde! But I didn’t know what I was in for. Turns out the Revlon Frost and Glow entailed using a cap that you put on your head, and pulled strands of your hair out of the holes in the cap, to ensure perfectly spaced highlights. Let’s just say the application process didn’t necessarily go as planned, and while in the shower when the excess dye was going down the drain, so were chunks of my hair. It was a process that left me with tears from the pain but a smile from the outcome...I had little strands of blonde! What more could I ask for?
THE TRANSITION
After my roots were becoming apparent from the initial highlights, I was yearning for more blonde. To satisfy my need, I saved up some money, went to a salon, and got partial highlights. But even that didn’t fulfill my desire to be totally blonde...so I bought a box of drugstore dye. The outcome was a honey blonde color, but I still wanted to achieve a more platinum shade. So over the course of a few months, I would dye my hair about once a month, using two boxes of the same brand and type of dye (Revlon ColorSilk). But every month, I would dye my hair using the next lightest shade in the range of blonde colors offered by the line. So in short, I accomplished my current light blonde color gradually.
That is not to say that my blonde journey wasn’t without some speedbumps; my hair has turned unexpected (not to mention unflattering) shades of orange, gray, and green. But my hair turning practically all of the colors of the rainbow has served as a beneficial lesson for me when it comes to at-home hair dying; I learned to never use a drugstore bleach (it instead produced a vibrant orange). And my worst mistake of all; trying to layer brown dye over orange hair (this produced a bright green...and this happened right around Christmas, festive!)
After I finally reached my goal of a platinum blonde color, I maintained it by dying my roots every month, using two boxes of Revlon ColorSilk’s 03 Ultra Light Sun Blonde Shade. Two boxes was necessary, because the first box only served to turn my roots orange; the second box took out some of that orange and made it more blonde. However, even after the second “correcting” box (as I called it), my roots were still rather yellow/orange. To tone some of the brassiness out, I used John Frieda Tone Correcting Color Renew purple shampoo and conditioner.
But after awhile, I realized that no matter how much tone correcting shampoo I used, my blonde would take on a yellow-y tone in between colorings (a con of box dye color; it dulls more quickly). I realized I would have to go to a salon to even it out. So now I go to a salon about once a month to get my roots touched up; they bleach them, then tone it. I find that since switching from drugstore dye to having a professional dye my hair, my color stays fresh throughout the entire duration of time in between coloring it. I used to think getting your hair done at a salon was overrated, and that I could do everything myself; and for a while, I could, but the all-over yellow color my hair was showing proved to be much more than my amateur skills could handle.
BEING BLONDE
I didn’t dye my hair blonde to look like a bimbo, or to emulate a Hollywood starlet. I dyed my hair because it was something I wanted. I didn’t like my natural hair color, so instead of complaining about it, I changed it! If only the world worked that way all the time. For me, this hair color isn’t a phase or a way to rebel against society’s “normal”. This is how I had always wanted my hair to look, and I don’t plan on changing it. As I was saying in my introduction, yes, having this hair color often groups me into the “dumb blonde” stereotype right off the bat, but if your hair color makes you happy, then so be it!
See more from Hayley at youtube.com/hayleyistcb