The New Rules for Blondes (9 page)

I locked myself in my bathroom and took matters in to my own (rubber-gloved) hands. Screw those jerks from the Aveda training salon. I was going to reach my dream of being blonder, even if I had to do it in my own bathroom. A bathroom that boasted two sinks but a layer of grime that no amount of bleach would eliminate. After a certain number of tenants precede you, there’s just no getting that tub clean. I started in on the steps outlined by the home blonde highlighting kit. I tried painting thin streaks of bleach onto small bunches of hair and then placing them down on my head, but the bleached sections of hair began bleeding onto other hair. Finally, my patience wore thin, and I couldn’t be bothered to carefully paint each thin section of hair. It’s impossibile to do quality highlights at home without those aluminum sheets (foils) that professional colorists use to isolate small sections. I noted this and decided to just go for broke with thick, bold highlights.
It’s summertime!
I thought.
Bold highlights will mimic the natural effects of the sun and give me a sunnier disposition!

Alas, the sun doesn’t lighten hair in tiger-stripe-like swaths of brassy color just above your ears. And it didn’t take long for my Jekyll-and-Hyde lawyer to notice the color change.

“Oh, did you get your hair done?” she inquired at work that Monday as she handed me a stack of files to process and prepare so that she could sign the letterhead cover letter and then bill the client another $450 an hour.

“How nice of you to notice. Well, yes, I do indeed have some fresh ‘highlights,’ if you will (will you?), on my dope weave (and I use the word ‘weave’ facetiously as my hair is actually all my own and I think that weaves on white women are quite suspect), but no, I didn’t ‘get it done’ per se. I didn’t go into a hair salon and enjoy a glass of complimentary champagne (though the imagined drink probably wouldn’t technically come from the Champagne region of France, so it wouldn’t technically be ‘champagne’ so much as bubbly white wine), a scalp massage (though I would love one of those as I fear that I am becoming aphephobic, that is afraid of touch, from lack of human contact), and a pricey cut and color. No, the wages that you are currently paying me do not permit such luxuries. I earn practically nothing for enduring your abuse at the grayest law firm of all time. So in short (perhaps it’s too late for that, Jekyll-and-Hyde lawyer), yes, I did color my hair, but I didn’t ‘get my hair done’ because that would imply that I earn a living wage.” That’s what I wanted to say. What did I really say?

“Yeah—I did. Thanks.” And I put my brassy, striped head down to add 0.25 hours to the bill tally for another client.

But I knew it was bad. Suzanne came to Chicago to visit me (bless her heart), and even she seemed startled by my brassy tiger stripes. You know it’s bad when a fellow blonde addict thinks that perhaps your blonde wasn’t the best idea. Blondes are like the original five members of Guns N’ Roses in their legendary song “Mr. Brownstone” with the lyrics “I used to do a little, but a little wouldn’t do it, so a little got more and more. I just keep trying to get a little better, said a little better than before.” It’s always just one more bottle of peroxide, one more at-home highlighting kit—blonde perfection is just one more process away. Blondes are like people who become addicted to plastic surgery. They need just one more surgery to fix this one thing, then they’ll stop—promise! And perhaps blonde nirvana truly is just around the corner, but please leave that transformation in the hands of trained professionals. Take it from a girl who suffered through a summer living near Detroit Tigers fans and joking that the tiger stripes on my blonde head were a tribute to the baseball team. At least Dmitry got a laugh at that over lunch.

CHAPTER 9

RULE:
Heed True Blonde Confessions

E
very blonde has been there: You’re struck by a bolt of inspiration and you simply must change your hair color and it must be done right away.
What could go wrong?
you think as you embark on an odyssey that will cost you many hours and lots of money, and eventually answer that very question. A lot—a whole lot can go wrong. A few of my blonde friends were willing to share their tress tales of woe.

Suzanne T. (platinum perfection, my lifelong bestie and partner in crime)

What’s your worst hair disaster?

Where do I begin? . . . As far as isolated incidences, it’s a toss-up between when I was given an adult bowl cut
43
(in 2000 as a junior in college) after being told I would look like Cameron Diaz and the time when I went essentially brunette. The lowlights got a touch out of hand that winter, and I never felt like myself. As far as everyday disasters, nothing is worse than humidity or having an amazing hair day when you have nowhere to go (shallow, I know).

When did you first go blonde?

I’m proud to say I have always been a version of blonde. However, it was freshman year in high school (age fourteen) when I was allowed to play with blonde highlights, which helped me get out of the dirty-blonde category and subsequently changed my life forever.

Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?

I dabbled with the world of at-home root coloring for about three years under the guidance of a wonderful blonde roommate, none other than Miss Selena Coppock. I was able to save money and look fabulously blonde. About four years ago I went back to having my hair professionally colored in preparation for my wedding (for fear I’d be too brassy in photos). I have followed three different colorists since then. Each one does his or her own version of blonde, and sometimes I like to switch it up.

Do you love life as a blonde?

I don’t even have to think to answer this—yes, yes, and yes.

Alison S. (California blonde, world traveler)

What’s your worst hair disaster?

Living in Italy, I was frequently referred to as
La Bionda
. I liked to refer to this notion as “the importance of being blonde.” The attention I received thanks to my hair color was everlasting and I relished every moment—well, almost every one. As a natural
bionda
, I would add just some shimmering, sun-kissed highlights every few months to my dark-blonde base. That, plus a beach tan, was my greatest weapon with the Italian men. However, one time, I decided that I wanted to be more natural, more organic, more
biologico
, as Italians call it. I had been dabbling with using chamomile shampoos and lemon-juice-infused conditioners with great success. A thought occurred to me:
Why not try chamomile flowers for highlights?
I envisioned these beautiful golden locks, like little baby flowers flowing from my crown. My friend accompanied me to the
farmacista
(the pharmacies in Europe are a fabulous cross between an apothecary, pharmacy, and beauty supply shop), and I bought a little box of chamomile flower hair dye. At home I mixed the flowers and stems along with water for a thick paste and lathered my hair. After letting the flowery mix set for about forty-five minutes, I washed, rinsed, and blow-dried. I took a look in the mirror. Not much difference. My hair looked a little changed, but I couldn’t really tell. In fact, it might even look a bit darker? No, that couldn’t be! So I convinced myself that there really wasn’t any difference . . . and then I had a snickering little thought: My hair was probably already becoming so blonde naturally from the sun that even chamomile wouldn’t work anymore! I had achieved a new height in natural blondeness!

That afternoon, I set out to see some university friends in the piazza. Our normal habit was to have lunch in the huge square in the center of the city. Generally there were about thirty of us hanging out and chatting about our day. I sat down in the warm, golden sun . . . and that’s when it started. A girl I knew who we referred to as
Buja
(and which I later found out was not a very nice nickname, as it’s a derivative of liar) yells out and says,
“Alison, che cosa hai fatto ai capelli?”
—translated, “Alison, what did you do to your hair?” Everyone whirls around to see what
La Bionda
did to her hair. I smiled questioningly.
What the hell did she see that I hadn’t? Had she noticed it had gotten darker? Did I leave traces of chamomile stems on my scalp and golden tresses? Did my hair smell bad from the chamomile mixture? Goddamn it, that guy Angelo I am in love with is here too—run!
As Buja came closer, everyone stared deeply into my skull. And then she let it fly:
“Ma sei VERDE!!!!
” Translation: “You’re GREEN!” And that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks: The change I had seen in my tiny bathroom, which by the way had no window or natural light but only a little lightbulb in the upper far corner, was not one of a darker color. Instead, the light hinted towards a different color . . . MOSS GREEN! And now the sun, which I always thought was one of my hair’s biggest allies, was an added spotlight to this horrible mistake! I was mortified. I spent the next hour defending my hair color and whether I was truly a natural
bionda
to my friends. Needless to say, I quickly made an afternoon appointment with Fabio (yes, the local VIP hairdresser was Fabio) and proceeded to enjoy a very toxic and enlightening dye job, returning my locks to a normal RGB value of blonde.

When did you first go blonde?

I was born blonde, but I’ve been doing highlights since my early twenties to give my tresses a bit more glow.

Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?

I have a new colorist, Marcus, who only uses 100 percent certified organic hair color and products. I’ve come a long way from the chamomile hippie flowers.

Do you love life as a blonde?

Yes, 100 percent. I’ve had brief snippets where I thought of going dark brown à la Liv Tyler, but I just can’t do it! I’m a blondie, tried and true.

Kendra C. (platinum blonde, fellow Masshole comedienne)

What’s your worst hair disaster?

My worst hair experience was in the tenth grade. I was just starting to branch out from Sun-In (peroxide in a plant spray bottle) and start experimenting with L’Oréal Preference home coloring products, and I couldn’t find a box with a picture of the exact shade of blonde I wanted so I decided to mix a few together to get a unique and unusual shade of blonde. It was a failed experiment that resulted in my mother stripping all the color from my hair and sending me off to my all-girls Catholic school the next morning with a head full of colorless hair.

When did you first go blonde?

I started coloring my hair with Sun-In during the summer before the eighth grade. My hair has a lot of red in it naturally, so most of July I was a brassy mess, but by August my hair was such a bright yellow, nobody even noticed my braces anymore!

Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?

I have a strong relationship with my colorist now. We’ve been together for over five years. I know her husband. I’ve moved from salon to salon with her. We’ve smoked pot together. It’s pretty serious.

Do you love life as a blonde?

I love life as a blonde, but I must admit I have always wanted to be ethnic. Olive skin, black hair, body confidence. C’mon, sounds so stress-free.

Jackie H. (bold, brilliant bright-blonde businesswoman)

What’s your worst hair disaster?

I can immediately recall. I was twenty-five and had just moved to NYC and was busily taking the city for all it was worth. This meant I was spending all disposable income eating and drinking and taking taxis everywhere. I had let my roots grow out to the point where I really couldn’t get away with it anymore but also couldn’t afford one of the more upscale salons that I was used to. I decided I would go to this random place in midtown, and since I couldn’t spring for highlights, I would just do a one-process bleaching of sorts to get rid of the roots. Big mistake. Huge. I emerged looking like the long-lost fourth child from
The Simpsons.
When I went to work the next day, it was clear from the response of my coworkers that something had to be done ASAP. You would think I’d learned my lesson. Nope. Again looking for the cheap way out, I headed to CVS to fix the problem on my own. I picked a darker shade of boxed blonde, thinking it would lessen the Simpson-esque hue I was now sporting. To my surprise, my hair instead turned gray. I’m talking Dorothy from
The
Golden Girls.
I wandered outside and was walking around my block, crying and trying to figure out my next move when I stopped on a bench to sit. Luckily, since I lived in Greenwich Village at the time, I realized I was sitting outside of a fancy salon. I had no choice. I wandered in and just looked at the receptionist. No words were needed and she sprang into action. I spent the next four hours in that salon, and my hair was so fried they feared it would actually fall out of my head. Eventually the problem was somewhat fixed, but not without a period of slightly orange locks and a costly fee. At that point I would have paid any amount. And that’s the story about the time I paid my rent two weeks late because I needed to get my hair done.

When did you first go blonde?

I was born blonde but gradually darkened to brunette as I aged. Sophomore year in high school I began to reverse this trend—good old Sun-In on a family vacation to Florida. I never looked back.

Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?

Colorist (see aforementioned story in which I learned the importance of professional color the hard way).

Do you love life as a blonde? 

I will
never
go back, so I guess that means I do.

Ginny V. (natural blonde with virgin hair)

Here’s a formative story about growing up as a natural blonde. I think the realization when I was pretty young that people regularly marveled at the color of my hair made me much more aware of how special it was to be a natural blonde.

My parents and a friend and I went to Benihana for my tenth birthday. We happened to be seated near a table of visiting Japanese businessmen (why they were dining at Benihana in Cincinnati, Ohio, during their travels, I don’t pretend to know). Benihana was always an entertaining place, and it was perfect for my birthday at the time. All the knife tricks by the chef, the novelty of a dinner performance—it was all really silly and festive. After we were settled in for a while, my parents noticed that the group of businessmen kept looking at our table, and they were looking intently at me, sitting with my blonde hair below my ears, in an oversize purple wool sweater from Talbots. After lots of gesturing of the international motion for “will you take a picture,” we realized they wanted to take a picture of
me
. In a kitschy tourist restaurant in southern Ohio that can only remind them of a Disneyfied version of home, the real novelty is the blonde American child. We figured out they must not have seen anyone so blonde before in Japan, and it was clearly worth taking home a picture as a souvenir.

Alison J. (California blonde, also a lucky hair color virgin)

What’s your worst hair disaster?

The day someone said my hair was starting to get darker. Those are fighting words in a blonde’s world.

When did you first go blonde?

Born with it and will die with it. That’s the only way of life for a blonde.

Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?

Being a natural blonde has its perks—no coloring for me! When my hair darkens in the winter, I spend my summers soaking in the sun to bring my hair back to platinum status. And getting a sick tan. The two go hand in hand.

Do you love life as a blonde?

There is nothing better than being a blonde. It’s a way of life that only blondes understand. To my fellow blonde bombshells (and you know who you are), keep on rocking on.

Stephanie M. (ashy blonde with fantastic body and curls)

What’s your worst hair disaster?

In high school, I was curious to see what the world looked like to a brunette. Unfortunately, I let a friend with extreme Goth tendencies choose the color. Instead of auburn, my hair ended up a vibrant eggplant! I spent the next day in the salon instead of school, getting it stripped out of my hair. It took about two years to slowly highlight my way to normal again.

When did you first go blonde?

I was born a redhead, but within a month, all my hair fell out and grew back in the right color: blonde! And it’s been that way ever since, with the exception of the brief and traumatic period of high school, mentioned above.

Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?

I haven’t lived in my hometown for more than a decade, but I still flew home to my colorist Elizabeth for highlights until early last year, when I finally found an incredible local colorist, Jerami. I’m now preparing for my breakup conversation with Elizabeth.

Do you love life as a blonde?

Yes! I usually am the only blonde in a group, which I love, and it’s also a great excuse any time I do something dumb. The one thing I’m envious of is dark eyebrows—they look so much better in pictures.