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My Hair, My Life (Completely narcisstic whittering)
3/16/2006 1:36 am Last Read: |
I had a rather traumatic winter. For no apparent reasons doctors could discern, my hair started falling out. Not a few strands; we're talking in clumps here. As I've always had hair as thick and long as Diana Ross, it was a traumatic experience, almost as traumatic as the time I dyed my hair bright blond in support of a friend going through chemo (and the looks I got then weren't complimentary, but I know a bit of what she must have felt walking around California while entirely bald). As hair=beauty to many people, a woman without hair garners quite a few negative reactions, both in other people and in oneself. I spent more than a little time trying to sort my hair and scalp out to save what I had left. Thankfully, it's grown back in, but due to toddler-minding and other pursuits I've no time to sort my hair out. My hair is the one part of me I absolutely MUST have sorted on any given day, so the fact I just cram it under a hat and forget it most days is really getting to me of late. My hair looks downright mundane. I hate it. My hair is a huge thing to me. It's my own way of expression. Being interracial, people have always tried to make my hair do something other than it should do; straigtening, perming, adding blond streaks, corn-rows, whatever. Caucasian stylists had no idea what to do with it, and neither did Afro-American stylists. It was always over lyed, under-permed, frizzed and layer cut to try and make it "lie down" or pimped up into a fro which never stayed put because it "lay down too much". And of course the things I did want to do with it, I couldn't because no-one knew how. Or because mixed-race kids shouldn't want to look like Cyndi Lauper. I just started doing my hair myself after a point, and would double process the hell out of it to dye it. Special Effects was my god. Bright candy pink, or blood red, or blue black, or black with purple streaks, or rainbow tri-mohicans. Name it, I've probably done it. What I didn't do, however, was go in to get it processed. Those curls are completely natural. Suddenly, I discovered the hair I'd always wanted to have was already existing on my head - curly, bouncy, and whatever colour I chose that week. I was overjoyed. The downer with the dyeing, however, is it's very high maintenance and with a toddler to mind, just doesn't work. Combine that with the winter hair-trauma, and I've had to let my natural colour come in - a rather boring reddish-black. About the only thing giving me joy was a few silver hairs I found as well. Silver hair giving joy? Well you'd have to know about Afro-American culture and White Irish for that. I've got both of those cultures to claim along with several dozen others, and the one thing all my cultural ancestors seem to be able to boast about is the most beautiful silver hair when they age. I don't mean wooly grey, I mean SILVER. Truly silver. Like spun metal, thread fine, growing out of one's head and soft as silk. I rather hoped I'd get that, and lo and behold it seems I will do. I may be the one woman on the planet who is looking forward to going grey. I've digressed - back to the present dilemma. What do I do with my poor abused head? I recently discovered braid extensions, which solve quite a few problems: one, I don't have to style my hair in the morning; two, my hair stays out of my way and; three, I can put all sorts of funky colours in and somehow it's acceptable, where just my normal hair dyed the same colours isn't. I've had blue with black, blue with purple, straight black, and black and red. Easy enough to sort. Thing is, everyone walks around with braids these days. With my current rather mundane-ish look, I'll probably be mistaken for someone who listens to R&B *shudder*. So, it's not my first choice but will do in a pinch. Lately, I've been looking into dreadlock extensions. They've almost become cliche. Look for any freaky person round town and make the checklist up. Piercings? Check. Tattooes? Check. Fake Dreadlocks? Check. While they're even less maintenance than braids and certainly look freakier (and in my world, freaky is GOOD), dreadlock extensions are a bit too common for my tastes. In my spelunking about for hair-joy, I found something very unique. Transitional-colour dreadlocks. As in they start one colour at the roots and then fade into another, with brilliant effect. This style of dreadlock extension is done by a salon in the UK called Braidstorm, and they're brilliant. You can see an example in the pic below. I have NO idea how they manage that but I certainly wouldn't complain! I've not seen anything like these before, and so they appeal to my unique nature. These can just as easily be part of a clubbing outfit as an everyday going out thing without freaking out mundanes as much as, say, plastic tubing. Perfect for me, essentially! I have just written on a quote, and now it's just a matter of choosing some colours (I'll probably stick with my usual colours, i.e. black with purple, though I think I may go for a UV purple for kicks) and also trying to figure out where I'm going to get the cash. I've been relatively good this year so far. Thirty-five pounds off after last count, still doing my drills and working on other things, so a reward wouldn't be untoward! Now if I can just find an outfit.... |
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