so this hair thing
Prompted by my complaints of "long hair is too much work to dye" and the subsequent comments on Facebook, I've been thinking about my hair, and the crazy colors thing I've been doing for the last 15 years (goodness, that's awhile).
I remember talking to Kit about it years ago, how I didn't really dye my hair funny colors for attention, it was just part of who I am. For a long time, I wanted to be invisible: I dressed in enormous baggy clothes, was an unhappy little ball of self-loathing for my physical appearance. This is something I still struggle with, mind, but I've clearly come through the worst of it, as pretty much none of my clothes hide me like that anymore. So I had blue or pink or purple hair, and people were always staring at it, but I always wished they'd just overlook it, not see me at all. It says a lot about my mental state when I dyed my hair black a couple of years ago, is all I'm saying.
So now I've got this gorgeous long hair, and I love it. It's ridiculous and trite, but it makes me feel sexier than the short hair (guys tend to love long hair, what can I say?), and I swear I could have run an experiment on how hair length relates to approachability, when I was growing it out (no matter how fabulous the color when my hair was short, only children and little old ladies commented on it; as I started to grow it out, there was a while when every single time I went out somewhere, at least one person complimented my hair; this has actually declined as it's gotten longer, so there's some sort of sweet spot in there). It's a marvelous accessory for dance, I'm finding (my hair was always at most chin-length, when I was really dancing a lot), it's fun to play with, and just feels nice. Though I really need to learn how to french braid it, my hair-wrangling skills are pretty weak.
But man, dyeing it is a pain. As I type this, there's still dye (and saran wrap and a towel) on my head...and my hands, and arms, and neck, and ears and I'm just ridiculously purple, there's no good way to keep this stuff from getting everywhere when you're doing it solo. And since I'm not bleaching it, the color fades after a month or two, and I have to do it all over again, and turn things purple for a few days. Not bleaching also means I'm stuck with overdying, which means I've been purple and/or red for the last couple of years now. Which is fine and good, but I miss the blues and teals and even the bright bright stuff. I just don't want to trash my hair with bleach, don't want to be forced to cut it off, like years ago.
I realize that most people don't change their hair on a continual basis, and this is one of my little eccentricities. But it just feels weird and wrong to have the same color for a long time, now that I'm not changing the cut at all. Plus, well, it's still me to have the brightly colored hair. Even if I haven't been "Blue-haired Angie" for years, the funny colors still fit me, and I'm not sure how I'd feel without it.
Which brings me back to the whole attention thing. There's a part of me that would just feel invisible and uninteresting without the crazy hair (tattoos and my style of dress aside). Like, well, ok. It's not like I've dated a lot, and I'm pretty lonely on that front, I won't lie. So I don't want to be invisible...but at the same time, I'm not dating a lot, maybe the hair's not doing me any favors (ok, this is more about me not really looking/trying, and feeling terrifically insecure about my no-job situation, but still). I don't really know.
I'm not just my hair color, but my hair color is a lot of me, if that makes sense. And my hair hasn't been its entirely natural state for as long as I can remember--my mom started perming my hair when I was like 6, and it was unnaturally curly right up through college, at which point I started dyeing it, and haven't had a perm since. So I really don't have the faintest notion what my hair would look like, if left to its own devices. I, augh.
This is some mixed-up ramble, right here, trying to figure out how I feel about this, what I want to do with my hair, my very identity. Which is kind of weird to realize, but yeah, I've been doing this dyeing stuff almost half my life, it's definitely a part of me. I want comments, and probably to talk about this in person with folks as I try to figure myself (my hair!) out, so bear with me while I pester some lot of you.
I remember talking to Kit about it years ago, how I didn't really dye my hair funny colors for attention, it was just part of who I am. For a long time, I wanted to be invisible: I dressed in enormous baggy clothes, was an unhappy little ball of self-loathing for my physical appearance. This is something I still struggle with, mind, but I've clearly come through the worst of it, as pretty much none of my clothes hide me like that anymore. So I had blue or pink or purple hair, and people were always staring at it, but I always wished they'd just overlook it, not see me at all. It says a lot about my mental state when I dyed my hair black a couple of years ago, is all I'm saying.
So now I've got this gorgeous long hair, and I love it. It's ridiculous and trite, but it makes me feel sexier than the short hair (guys tend to love long hair, what can I say?), and I swear I could have run an experiment on how hair length relates to approachability, when I was growing it out (no matter how fabulous the color when my hair was short, only children and little old ladies commented on it; as I started to grow it out, there was a while when every single time I went out somewhere, at least one person complimented my hair; this has actually declined as it's gotten longer, so there's some sort of sweet spot in there). It's a marvelous accessory for dance, I'm finding (my hair was always at most chin-length, when I was really dancing a lot), it's fun to play with, and just feels nice. Though I really need to learn how to french braid it, my hair-wrangling skills are pretty weak.
But man, dyeing it is a pain. As I type this, there's still dye (and saran wrap and a towel) on my head...and my hands, and arms, and neck, and ears and I'm just ridiculously purple, there's no good way to keep this stuff from getting everywhere when you're doing it solo. And since I'm not bleaching it, the color fades after a month or two, and I have to do it all over again, and turn things purple for a few days. Not bleaching also means I'm stuck with overdying, which means I've been purple and/or red for the last couple of years now. Which is fine and good, but I miss the blues and teals and even the bright bright stuff. I just don't want to trash my hair with bleach, don't want to be forced to cut it off, like years ago.
I realize that most people don't change their hair on a continual basis, and this is one of my little eccentricities. But it just feels weird and wrong to have the same color for a long time, now that I'm not changing the cut at all. Plus, well, it's still me to have the brightly colored hair. Even if I haven't been "Blue-haired Angie" for years, the funny colors still fit me, and I'm not sure how I'd feel without it.
Which brings me back to the whole attention thing. There's a part of me that would just feel invisible and uninteresting without the crazy hair (tattoos and my style of dress aside). Like, well, ok. It's not like I've dated a lot, and I'm pretty lonely on that front, I won't lie. So I don't want to be invisible...but at the same time, I'm not dating a lot, maybe the hair's not doing me any favors (ok, this is more about me not really looking/trying, and feeling terrifically insecure about my no-job situation, but still). I don't really know.
I'm not just my hair color, but my hair color is a lot of me, if that makes sense. And my hair hasn't been its entirely natural state for as long as I can remember--my mom started perming my hair when I was like 6, and it was unnaturally curly right up through college, at which point I started dyeing it, and haven't had a perm since. So I really don't have the faintest notion what my hair would look like, if left to its own devices. I, augh.
This is some mixed-up ramble, right here, trying to figure out how I feel about this, what I want to do with my hair, my very identity. Which is kind of weird to realize, but yeah, I've been doing this dyeing stuff almost half my life, it's definitely a part of me. I want comments, and probably to talk about this in person with folks as I try to figure myself (my hair!) out, so bear with me while I pester some lot of you.