Hair is important to us.
We have multiple body parts and physical features, some sexualised and others fetishised, but for some reason it is our hair, or the non-existence of it, that makes up a big part of who we actually are. According to how you want to express yourself, you can curl it or straighten it. You can even get a perm if you’re self-confident enough. In the most satisfying and truly empowering case, you can dye your hair in rebellion against your mother’s advice. Whatever chapter in life you’re at, here’s a guide on how to dye your hair.
Find the nearest shop that is still open at 12am on a Sunday night, which happily caters to both people in need of a midnight snack and those with highly regrettable late night ideas like yours.
Stand in front of the aisle that presents all sorts of hair products in every colour of the rainbow. Choose one based on how desperately you want to prove to the world that you’re different.
There’s crazy-cat-lady-red, a shade of I-post-poems-on-Tumblr-blue, freshly-divorced-blonde, and obviously the classic feminist-pink. Reach for the latter until you realise that your fringe is already short enough for people to believe you’re a socialist hippie, and you’re not ready to look like you’re a feminist and vegan on top of that, too. There’s only so much change your identity can handle before you get a self-diagnosed multiple personality disorder.
End up choosing a colour that matches your hair the least, because you’ve convinced yourself that you need to go through at least four more potentially awful hairstyles before you’re ready to grow up.
Tear apart the hair colouring kit like a child that’s been desperately waiting for Christmas. Like someone who hasn’t eaten in days and was given a burger for free. Like a pack of coyotes ripping apart fresh animal carcasses. You get the idea.
Go through about four YouTube tutorials on how to dye your hair yourself, before you get caught in a spiral of watching cat videos getting scared by cucumbers. Decide that you’ve educated yourself enough and that the idea to dye your hair seems a little more reckless and crazy now that it’s 2am. Put your common sense in a cage and throw away the key.
Channel your inner child and find some traumatic experience to blame your impulsive decision on. Go back to every conversation you’ve had with your mother, comments by men who thought you’d be absolutely comfortable with them critiquing your appearance, and every other insignificant instance that you think is worth repelling against. Fail to find one good reason to dye your hair because of someone else and do it anyway.
While you’re waiting for the colour to sink in and change your life forever, scroll through selfies in an attempt to say goodbye to the old you. Shed a tear when you see one good picture of yourself and realise that you might have made a huge mistake going from blonde to black.
The revealing moment has come: you look in the mirror and admire your new self. There might be a couple of missed patches here and there, but who cares when you’ve finally made a decision based on your own desires without taking anyone else into account. For a second you feel empowered.
Stare at the mirror for long enough to regret it.
Panic when you realise that in the future you’ll have to live with the grown out roots that’ll completely contrast your originally blonde hair.
Figure out that you don’t want people to make Oreo-related comments about your hair in a month from now.
Create a pro- and con-list for whether you should move to Cuba and become a farmer, get a face and hair transplant, or call your hairdresser tomorrow. Find out that you’ve just spent your last quid on your hair dying kit so the latter option will have to do.
Take a picture to document your failure and laugh about it a day later with your friends.
Never dye your hair ever again.
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash