The closest I ever come to doing anything scientific in my every day life--other than writing lesson plans--is dying my hair. I always feel like a mad scientist when I'm mixing the chemicals together, wearing the latex gloves, and watching the liquids turn from white to dark purple (usually). And so, as I sit here with the contents of a bottle of Feria on my head (a brand I haven't used in the better part of a decade), I'm thinking about the choice to be a redhead.
I'm a natural brunette, and I do think my natural hair color is pretty cute. I can't remember when I got my first set of highlights--maybe around 15? I do remember sitting in the chair at my salon, with a plastic cap on my head, having my hair pulled through tiny little holes with a pick. Or whatever. Tiny little blonde streaks in my hair. Totally '90s.
Right after I graduated from high school, I got the one and only trendy haircut of my life: sliced to right below my chin (necessitating serious blow-drying), thick bleached-out sections, then the whole head dyed red, amounting to three two-inch streaks of fire-engine red on each side of my head. The rest of my hair was very dark. Essentially the same color Courteney Cox had in
Scream 2, except I did it first. I swear. Still, totally '90s.
And thus began my love affair with red hair.
My first home-dye was on the floor of my dorm room, freshman year, with my friend Kim working the L'Oreal magic. I've only gotten my color done in a salon once or twice since then; a stylist actually told me once that I was doing a pretty good job myself, and I didn't need someone else to do it for me. I turned my hair every shade of red imaginable, from strawberry blonde to fire-engine red to so-red-it's-black (which was my hair color when I met Jake).
When I hit 25, I decided to go blonde, which really only meant light reddish, since (to my surprise, for some reason), it's nigh-on impossible to get red dye out of your hair. Then, at 27, I decided I would never-ever-ever dye my hair again, and instead, would be happy with myself the way I was born, and embrace being a brunette.
Then, I turned thirty. And I realized I
like dying my hair; I
like being a redhead. And so, back to red it was. I'm trying for the slow transition. I went from brunette to dark auburn to lighter auburn, and now, as I sit with my head marinating, it's even redder. And I feel more me.
Have I doomed my life to box after box of chemistry sets drying my hair out? Probably. Or, I'll do like my mom and highlight my way into graying "naturally." But, for now, I'm happy to be amongst the ranks of Rita Hayworth, Lucille (McGillicutty Ricardo) Ball, Molly Ringwald, Julianne Moore, and, my hair idol since the late nineties:
Willow Rosenberg.
, I realized I'd heard a few of the songs when the album first came out.
Here's the thing. I'm sure this book has some pretty awesome recipes that really stand up to the test of time. But I haven't been able to get myself past the layout, the pictures, the amazingly awe-inspiring early-1960s-ness of the whole thing. It's I Love Lucy, it's Mad Men. I'm obsessed with the whole thing of it.
and Occasions
and eBay-ed ones like 1921's two-volume Book of Etiquette) and other volumes on femininity and what it means to be a woman. The current crown of my collection is 1846's The Young Mother.
