It’s cliche but it’s true.
You never know what you have until it’s gone.
My hair was getting long.
It was starting to just become this wisp of a thing that planted flat against my head and clung lifelessly by its roots. Sure, sometimes it was pretty but it was bOring!
Like all restless souls, I needed a change. I wanted to set aside my prudish reputation and BE COOL for once.
So I headed to my good ol’ reliable hairstylist whose name I always mistaken as Michelle but really is something else but we’ll call her Michelle in this entry to protect the innocent (but really guilty).
So anyway, I tell Michelle I wanted something choppy and edgy. Something hip, hop and happenin’.
Something like Selena Gomez:
Image via Starpulse
(Ok, so now you know how prudish I am if my idea of edgy is a Disney teenybopper. And, she’s not even one of the bad role model ones!)
Michelle acted like she understood completely. It must be said that she is a Korean middle-aged woman so we had some language barriers to overcome but I had been going to her for years and she’d always been solid.
So she chopped and sliced and diced away half my hair. Then she felt I should get highlights.
Me: Oooh! Can I (lifting bottom locks) get this part dyed? Like that trend that those girls have…
Michelle: Oh! I know what you mean!
Me (thinking): We’re soul mates. She knew exactly what I wanted which were ombre highlights that look like this:
So Michelle takes out her dye kit and starts brushing thick goop into my hair. Then she rolls my locks up with silver foil and sets it under this big red space helmet-looking machinery that blows out hot air. The entire time, I’m half-lost into my Kindle, reading Summer and the City (good book but not as good as the first one).
When I look up, the bottom half of my hair had turned burnt orange.
Michelle sees the panic rising in me and quickly says, “Your hair too long. I cut more layers so highlight not so light.”
Me (stunned): Okay…
She cuts and she cuts but it’s not looking much better. And my hair turned burnt yellow.
Finally…
Michelle: Your hair too thin. No fit this hairstyle.
Michelle, Michelle, Michelle, you couldn’t have told me this BEFORE you cut off half my hair??!
I went home feeling really foolish that my plan to become edgy turned out less than successful.
Ah well, you make do.
Thanks to this job, I get to head into the Neil George Salon in Beverly Hills for a visit with Kazumi Morton, a master colorist who loves to create beautiful, natural- and healthy-looking hair. Kazumi has touched the locks of Christina Applegate, Shannon Doherty, and Kristen Stewart so I’m hopeful she’ll be able to fix up my bad ombre.
Stay tuned for my experience at the hands of a Hollywood hair pro!
