A Trip to the Beauty Salon

In my family, most of the women change the color of their hair more often than I rearrange the furniture in my house. (often since I have a cat bulimic cat) My mother is a young 82 year old, red head, who still works full time.  She changes the color of the red…sometimes her hair is a brassy orange and others a muted brunette.  But, always the highlights are red. A good Irish girl

My sister, on the other hand, likes to experiment.  We never know if she will show up with Gothic black to Marilyn Monroe platinum blond. This expression demands you know that person’s face, eyes and tone of voice in order to recognize them.

I was born blond.  A tow headed child with blue eyes, long skinned up legs and hands built for either playing the piano or milking cows. I haven’t changed my hair color much over the years, but the darn stuff grows relatively fast so my hair style changes every few weeks.  (about as often as Holly changes her color)

My daughter, Chris, has a friend who recently graduated from a local cosmetics school.  Chris and I, wanting to help Nicole advance her career, decided to utilize her as our beautician.   I was, naturally, a few minutes late for my appointment.  Nicole gathered up the necessary chemicals to maintain my “blondness”….no not the state of mind…the color!  (yes, our automobiles are fully equipped with blond-star)

Nicole chatted about her boyfriend and other friends that Chris and she have in common.  I know some of them.  She applied the colorant to my hair and left me to inhale that wonderful, eye watering, nose running, make my ears leak chemical smell. 

Roughly half an hour later, Nicole came back to check on my dye.  The beautician typically unrolls a couple of foils for verification of color.  I heard a sharp inhale.  I heard a mildly strong expletive!  I was spun even farther away from the mirror.  My newly graduated beautician fairly ran to the other side of the building.  I saw her confer with an older gentleman I assumed was the manager.  They both looked back towards ME…oh crap….that whole side of the salon had turned and was looking at ME! 

I just started to swing my chair around to peek into the mirror, trying to figure out what the apparent fuss was about…when Nicole ran back to me, grabbed me by the arm, hustled me to the sink and began yanking the remaining foils from my hair.  I had vision of Don King (yes the boxing czar) in my head.  I thought for certain my hair was burned up and frizzed up.  What else could it be?

Just as she was turning on the water to rinse my hair, I lifted my head to peek into the mirror.  HOLY SMURF!!!  My hair was ROYAL BLUE!!  No, I AM NOT OLD ENOUGH…yet, to wear blue hair!  

What did we do?  How was it fixed?  Well….for the first time in my life, I had Gothic Black hair….two weeks later, I purchased an “at home” hair colorant……