My hair is orange. Orange tinted really, like orange sherbert. It didn't start out that way, and I really have no one to blame but myself.
On my birthday (the dread 40) I had a city council meeting so I dropped Casmir off at Sara Nan's house so they could play while Sara mocked me on TV.
Oops, I meant to say watched me on TV. Anyway, to keep themselves occupied they had a day-of-beauty and tried out some new products that Sara had picked up. These products included self tanner (Casmir now has knees that match my hair) and a bottle of hair dye that was bright pink.
I came in, a bit numb, sat on the stool - next thing I know I am sitting on the porcelain Plebe and Sara is putting brink pink goop on my hair with watch looks suspiciously like a miniature toilet brush. With a quick rinse we soon discovered that I looked like a clown. Two rinses and lots of soap later I had rather amazing highlights, and a even more amazing pink tone to my hair.
It didn't come out the next day either. After several shampoos. Although the sides started to really start looking blotchie. Sara called to see if I was going to sue her and promised never to use experimental new-on-the-market permanent beauty products on me ever again. (I think she was lying.)
I asked for divine intervention and was refused, although a hair appointment was made for me at the local beauty shop with a Filipino girl who had corrected a major hair color faux paus before.
Unfortunately, it was not the Filipino girl who did my hair - it was a very sweet Thai girl who had been in Seward for less than a year, spoke broken English, and had just started doing hair. She advised she studied in Galena. Don't shake your head, I have never been to Galena either and couldn't find it on a map if I tried.
I did find it on the internet. Apparently 664 people live in Galena, 305 of whom are women. The median resident age is 28.5 years and the village is 67.4% Alaska Native. Galena is in the Yukon Koyukuk area and takes up just under 18 square miles. There is no road there. The low temp. for January is -12.9 F., the high for July is 68.3 F. January had 10 days with precipitation and July has 15.
American translation: Presuming she did the hair of every woman in town while she was there, my color expert worked on perhaps 100 women who did not have beautiful jet black hair.
Now lets take that 100 through the rest of the states we know. According to New York-based Simmons Market Research Bureau one in three women admit to coloring their hair. That takes our pool down to 33 people. Demographics by Clairol suggest that 40% of all hair dye in the Pacific region is brown. Now we have 13 people in our pool. 20% is red. Gives us 10 people. Knock off one more for black, leaving us with 9 possible practice blondes before Thai got me. Of the 9 remaining souls 45% are bottled blondes. 5 people.
So, after having the experience of working on five people Thai took on my clown head. First thing she wanted to do was take me back to my natural color - dark brown. Only problem with that theory is that I was born blonde, have always been blonde, and my hair kinda resists being anything but blonde. Although apparently it has a healthy sense of humor.
After a great deal of very anxious negotiating I agreed to a very dark blonde brown. It didn't take. It did leave my hair a brassy gold with orange tones.
Then a medium tone brown and pure bleach were put in to see if they could lift the dull color. The bleach did add some pinkie orange highlights, but the brown did nothing. She was willing to try again, but noted that my hair was really fried and I shouldn't use a curling iron any time soon. I elected to leave, thanking her graciously for trying.
Actually it isn't the worst job ever done on my hair, the Aveda salon in Victoria British Columbia holds that distinction. The salon, not the school. It was in late October and they apparently thought that I was looking for a Halloween haircut. Not exactly what I had in mind.
In New Orleans I got crazy from all the humidity and went in for a cut. The man had never cut "white" hair before, never cut long hair before, and took almost an hour brushing the tangles from my shampooed hair.
My one of my best cuts was from the single mom who lived next door in a basement apartment, she gave me a freebee after my gas stove exploded - sending me through the kitchen door into her apartment with my hair and face on fire. I had second and third degree burns, and was missing a shock of hair...but she actually was talented enough to style it so you couldn't really tell. Bless her twice.
The other best cut, my Goddess cut, was from a dancer who worked on cruise ships named Lauren. She rocked, I hopped out of her chair looking the best I ever looked. Should have taken a picture. Years later I tried to track her down and found her sister, who also gave me a decent cut. Great family.
Admittedly, I am generally very lazy when it comes to my hair. Most days I just run my fingers through it a couple times and wrap it up in a rubber band. I have long hair so I only have to cut it twice a year. It is naturally wavy, so curling irons are a special event option, although I have been known to yank out the flat iron if I have serious clients inroute.
At the same time I will sit patiently for HOURS while others avail themselves to playing with the hair. Same with make up. Best part of modeling, the hair and makeup staff. I am not a competency snob, however, I will sit there even if they are six and putting it into mismatched braids. But the clown color thing, that is just a little too much for me.
After all, I am the last living spokesmodel for the long-defunct Alaska Shampoo, and I have an image to maintain.
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