October 10, 2006

The Post That Makes Men Glad They Are Not Women (As If They Ever Wished They Were)

I set aside an hour and a half for beautification today. My skin tends to be oily, so occasionally I apply a coat of Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque to my face. I spread the thick green mask on my face, wait for it to dry, and wash it off, along with the impurities and tension that mar my complexion.

Male readers may need an idea of the color and consistency of this beauty product.

For obvious reasons, I use the Queen Helene Mint Julep masque in private whenever possible. I’m an obsessive multi-tasker, so I often pay bills, unload the dishwasher, make phone calls, or write while waiting for the masque to dry. Today, however, I had ambitious hair-coloring plans I intended to perform while the masque dried.

It’s not unusual for me to color my hair myself. I’ve been using the same color, Feria Creme Brulee (aka “Golden Brown”) for years. It’s a wonderful reddish blonde. My mom hated it and always tried to get me to dye my hair plain blonde. Since her death many of her friends have told me they’ve secretly liked it the whole time; they just agreed with her when she complained about it to make her happy.

Salon professionals sneer at the idea of having only one color on your hair, because hair is naturally composed of strands of different colors. Thus, stylists will often weave highlights (a lighter color) or lowlights (a darker color) into your hair to contrast with the main color.

I decided to acknowledge the passing of summer into fall by adding some lowlights to my hair. In addition to my regular Creme Brulee, I purchased boxes of Hot Toffee (”Rich Golden Brown”) and Crystal Brown (”Light Brown”). (I guess they ran out of brownish dessert names). I also bought all the accouterments I’ve seen the stylists use at the salon when they add highlights using foils.

At the last minute I decided to confine myself to the Brulee and the Toffee and not go completely crazy on my first try, which turned out to be a wise decision.

I wanted to be sure I applied the dye correctly, so I Googled the procedure. I Googled “how to apply lowlights when coloring hair” and “dying hair with different colors” and thousands of related searches. Apparently you can learn how to build a bomb on the Internet, but if you want to dye your hair using more than one color you have entered dangerous territory and the sites universally agree that you “must consult a hair care professional” which I had no intention of doing, since I considered myself sort of an amateur hair care professional, albeit one who had only seen two colors applied and hadn’t actually done it.

My unhelpful research took so long that I only had an hour to slather on the masque and figure out the hair color technique before I had to pick up carpool.

I had chosen Hot Toffee as my darker color because according to the colors and descriptions on the boxes, it seemed very similar to Creme Brulee and I thought it would match well without being too much darker than the rest of my hair.

In case you don’t know much about brownish desserts, here’s a picture of Creme Brulee:

Here’s what toffee looks like:

When I mixed up the dye, however, I was shocked by the color.

That’s my beloved Creme Brulee on the left and Hot Toffee on the right. Hot Toffee my ass. That dye could be called “Hot Chocolate Pudding” or “Melted Devil’s Food Cake” or “Tepid Tootsie Roll” but it was dark as hell and frankly, it scared me. Until I saw it, I’d figured that if I ran short on time I’d do my whole head Hot Toffee, but now that wasn’t looking like a viable option. It may be close to Halloween, but if I want to look like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark:

then I’ll go buy a wig. And I like that one slow song Amy Lee of Evanescence sang a couple of years ago, but that doesn’t mean I want to dye my hair in homage (even though I wouldn’t mind knowing what shade of lipstick she’s wearing):

I decided to go along with my original plan of using both colors. If I ended up looking like a zebra I’d wear a scarf for a day while I decided which color was better, and dye my whole head the more flattering shade.

The dying began. At first I tried to copy proper salon technique as I had witnessed it, which is to stick a piece of foil under the hair to be colored, paint the dye on the hair, then fold up the foil to keep the darker dye from getting on the rest of my hair, like so:

While a hair care professional can make this maneuver look relatively simple, I quickly discovered that it was damn unreasonable to expect an amateur to try to isolate small pieces of hair on her own head, secure the foil, use the brush, and so forth. I can’t blame the awkwardness on my bum wrist or my unfamiliarity with the technique. It was apparent immediately that even Paul Mitchell, John Freida or the Bumbles would need a friend to accomplish this task satisfactorily, especially if the back of the head is involved.

At that point I quit using the brush and resorted to dipping my fingers in the inky gel, grabbing small pieces of hair and covering them with the dye. As I finished each one I squinched a piece of foil around it so that it looked like a piece of Christmas candy. A piece of buttery toffee.

When I’d had enough of that, I switched to the Creme Brulee dye which I spread liberally over the rest of my hair and rubbed into my roots. Then I stood back to gauge the effect.

Honestly, I’ve looked better. For the sake of my vanity, I’ll take this opportunity to remind you of that, because there’s at least one equally unflattering picture of me coming up and I don’t know that I can stand it.

(To justify the use of this photo, let me point out that this is an excellent example of Creme Brulee hair contrasting with emerald green grass and crisp white clothes.)

I decided to unwrap my toffees and see exactly how dark they were getting. They were getting this dark:

The photo may not show the dark strands to be as scary as they really were, but surely you can see the hunk of brown hair balanced precariously on top of my head. Beauty alert!

I may be adventuresome, but I’m no fool, and I saw a disaster in the making. I wasn’t about to leave that combination on my hair for twenty-five minutes. It was fine to talk about looking like a zebra when it was an abstract concept, but now that it seemed to be approaching reality it was time to throw in the towel, so to speak.

I stepped in the shower immediately and rinsed out my hair. The dye, masque, my facial impurities and tension rinsed off all at the same time, so at least my hour of beauty had not been a complete waste.

Today my hair looks much the same. I still have roots, but I fancy they are not quite as noticeable because I do have a few strands of hair here and there that are darker than others. Actually, it appears that the Hot Toffee dye wasn’t going to turn out Elvira-ish. It might even have been pretty if I hadn’t been a chicken and let it process the full time.

In this case, better a chicken than a zebra.