Sunday, April 24, 2016

Manic Gray

I started going gray in junior high. It was just a few strands in which I took pride thinking it showed how stressed out and serious I was. Fast forwarded 15 years and I hate the gray I have all over, but mostly right in the front.

Now, covering grays is no joke. They don't absorb the color and don't hold it for too long, either. I started coloring it with liquid henna that Whole Foods and Mother's Market carry. It was fine, but a pain in the ass. I would have to shampoo my hair and let it air dry for a bit. (Side note: I have giant, Diane Ross/Slash hair. I mean there's a lot of it, it's curly, and it's huge. Wider than my shoulders huge. My nickname in junior high was actually Slash.) I'd do my best to saturate my hair, put a plastic bag on my head, and let it sit for hours while I cleaned the house. I did this every other Sunday. About a year ago, I got so tired of the effort and time suck, so I stopped and decided to let my gray streaks fly.


I'm quite averse to any kind of time-consuming beauty maintenance and it's because I was blessed with thick eyebrows, eyelashes, good face coloring, and, when not having to be dyed, low-maintenance hair. I don't wear make up. I wash my hair once or twice a week, put some mousse in it and it's good. I pluck my eyebrows once or twice a week and that's it. I've had bad skin on and off since I was nineteen, but not a whole lot has worked, so I've just let it go (which seems to be the one thing that does work). I thought not dyeing my hair anymore would be freeing. I was right and wrong.

It was nice to not have to spend the money or time on that maintenance, but I've really started to hate my grays in the last few months. They don't make me feel old, but it's not a pleasant feeling when I see them and I decided to finally go back to coloring my hair with a twist - I would color my hair blue (meaning my grays would be blue since my hair is black/dark brown).

For the last ten years or so, I've wanted blue hair and a septum piercing, but I was in law school, then I was looking for a job, then I was working and none of those things were compatible with a septum piercing or blue hair. However, I've recently started working from home and really needed a boost and thought it's now or never, so I did it.

I think hair dyes that lift the hair at all are terrible (this is almost all hair dyes - even the ones without ammonia still have peroxide, which is a hair killer), so I went old-school: Manic Panic. I picked After Midnight, because the hair swatches at the beauty supply store showed it as being the darkest blue.

                                            
Well, not so much on my hair. My grays came out cotton candy blue.

I didn't mind at all. I was just happy to not have the gray anymore. It started to fade at the root right up front after a couple of days, but that's probably because I'm constantly pushing my hair back with my hand at that section. It didn't fade too much after a washing and there's currently more seeping into my hair as I type this (a week later). It's more fun and less time consuming to apply, probably because I don't care about even coverage and I'm getting cotton candy blue hair out of it. The next jar I'm getting will probably be the darkest purple they have. Finally, beauty maintenance I can look forward to!



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