Hair Despair

If I were to tell you that there is one thing that I only do once a year (if I'm lucky) what would you guess that one thing to be?

Anyone? Anyone?

Ooh, I'm a little afraid to consider what you might be guessing. I'll tell you. I pay through the nose to get my hair highlighted. Superficial, yes. Worthwhile, usually.

Since this summer has rolled around I took into account all of the upcoming events in which I would like to present with my new golden kissed locks in tow. With all things considered, I chose to break the bank and go Monday evening for a shaped up hair cut and the ever loving highlights.

I should preface this story by saying that since Eric and I have lived here for 10 years now, I have only found one other stylist (who moved) and the one I am currently going to that I really like. With that said, I'll begin to tell you the reason I will never go back to my favorite stylist for highlights. My Girl, let's call her Mandi, because that's pretty much her name and she's not a blog reader, was touching up just a little portion on my bangs and just by some freakish, careless accident splashed bleach into my right eye. Yeah, I'm talking straight from the brush, slopping into my eye and my cheek simultaneously. I don't believe that the word pain even begins to describe how much my eye hurt instantly. Mandi felt absolutely terrible to the verge of tears out of concern and I tried to reassure her that I knew full well that it was purely an accident, but Dear Lawrd that hurt! Within 10 minutes, I had recovered enough to be able to see through my tears and for her to get me done and out of there. When I got home, 3 hours later, Eric (the king of safety and hygiene, by profession) told me that I absolutely had to rinse my eye for at least 10 minutes. Oh, not that! I have learned that I am mostly alright with just about any other kind of doctor getting all up in my business, but when it comes to touching and messing with my eyeballs, forget it. Scary. I did as he said and followed with a very damp and cool wash cloth covering my eye for the next hour. Within this same time, I had begun to experience the most severe headache I have ever had. It felt like every teensy corner of my brain and sinus cavities were being disinfected and stinging with a rolling stream of bleach.

As if it couldn't get any worse than that, (wait I guess it could have; I could have gone blind and didn't) but on the superficial front, my highlights sucked. Instead of my hair being transformed into a gorgeous caramel and honey kissed splendor, it was orange. Faded and orange. With a tinge of brassy for good measure. It was horrible.

Tuesday, I opted to take a *sick* day, (mental health day) (whatever you want to call it because work has been incredibly SLOW) and made the most of my post headache trauma. I called Mandi to let her know that my eye was much better, but I wasn't especially thrilled with my highlights. She asked me to come back for a re-do, minus the bleach in the eye.

This time, after another 3 hour stint of sitting around with a roll of aluminum foil crammed into my head, I had blond highlights and brunette low lights. More of what I asked for, but not quite right. When I got home and took a closer look, my hair appeared to be brown-ish, with faded white looking straw colored strings running through it. Do I really need to tell you how ugly this looked? It looked like I had been sleeping in a haystack the way the color stood out against the brown.

Needless to say, I've been greatly disappointed. My solution? Color it all. Start over, start fresh and get the straw out of my hair. I dumped a whole box of "nutmeg" hair color onto my hair and gambled with how much I was going to destruct my highlights and the overall health of my hair. The result was mixed; the front of my hair is very brown, there are some caramel colored low lights that shine through the back and my hair has managed to retain somewhat of a healthy appearance despite all of the chemicals being thrust into it with a short 48 hour period.

Talk about disappointing! Six hours of my time wasted sitting in the salon chair, my highlight money right down the drain,(literally) and nothing but regular old brown to show for it. Luckily Mandi gave me a fair enough discount otherwise, I would be out of my mind with regret and anger. So, what the heck do I do now? I still haven't achieved the color that I so desperately wanted and I'm still out of money. Should I settle and be happy that I can see and my hair hasn't fallen out or should I move onto another option to see about really being able to get what I wanted in the first place?