Peroxide Sunday

Sitting over the bathtub with my hair soaking in Red Rose tea, I couldn't help but think anything but, "this would probably be something I should blog about". Or not, because it definitely will make any sane person question my (questionable) intelligence. But nevertheless, I hope you can enjoy this story of my Peroxide Sunday.

Perhaps it was wrought by watching too many episodes of Green Acres, with Lisa in her pretty dresses and tarty blonde hair. Perhaps it was brought on by my missing my old schizophrenic hairstyles, back when I would decide on a whim that I wanted burgundy hair and would dye it myself and cut it a few inches shorter all in a half hour timespan, when I didn't care if it wasn't straight because I was younger and I could just pretend that I was trying to go for the non-conformist look, like that time I convinced my hairdresser to do opposite spikes at the bottom of my longish hair, so I had blonde streaks that were a good three inches longer than my brown hair. Anyway, whatever it was, and despite any excuse I can think of, I can hear my mom in the back of my head saying, "Damn. Well, that was stupid."

Anyway, I decided that my reddish brown hair with non-tarty blond highlights that I'd been salvaging since December was no longer fun. I decided to bleach that bitch, bleachier than I've bleached it ever before. And so I decided that I could do it myself, despite all the advice I've ever received ever in my life. Whims are not brilliant things, you know. The first bleach job turned it a fierce shade of orange, which would have been really awesome if I were auditioning to be Carrot Top's stage crew, or maybe Ronald McDonald's cousin... but not so much for my conformist occupation as a clerical assistant. So I turned to Google. Google advised me that I probably shouldn't dye a darker colour over it. It might turn purple. Or green. Which I would have valued in my youth, but today... not so much. So being the ohhh so intelligent (snerk) person that I am, I procured another container of bleach.

And this one promptly took away the orange. Yay! Unfortunately, it only stripped the orange at the top. The top was left a lovely shade of white, leaving the bottom to be a lovely shade of orange. The sad thing is, this has happened to me on more than one occasion. You think I would learn. But damn, that was stupid.

I furiously turned to Google once more, where I read about naturally dyeing hair with coffee and/or tea. Seemed easy enough. Brew some tea. Dunk head it in. Horrible hair colour gone, yes?

So I considered myself lucky that I had just bought a box of 48 tea bags. I made a big pot of tea. I waited for it to cool down. I dunked my head in it. It ran down into the bathtub, dripping and dripping. I got an old cloth, saturated it in the tea, and sat there with it on my head, laughing hysterically, holding a pair of scissors, willing myself not to cut my hair into a Pixie cut. I dipped my brush in the brown water, ran it through my hair...waited and waited and waited. Nothing. Soaked my hair. Nothing. Got out the hairdryer. Furiously blew my hair dry, hoping the heat would cause the stain of the tea to set. Nothing. Ran out to the kitchen, grabbing the 3/4 cup or so of coffee that was left in the coffee pot. Soaked the top of my hair in that. Nothing. Except now my hair smells of coffee.

Moral of the story? Stick with your natural hair colour. Not that I'm absolutely sure what exactly mine is. The second moral of the story is that two wrongs don't make a right, especially when the wrongs involve overpriced bottles of peroxide and being mistaken for Carrot Top's little sister. Or something like that. Breakfast drinks probably can't fix it, though I did not yet try orange juice. I live in mortal fear now of anything with the word "orange" in it.

Sunday, bloody Sunday.