the highs and lows of highlights

I've had a rough two months. Actually, my hair has had a rough two months. I get bored very easily, and have always felt as if coloring my hair would make things a little more exciting. Part of me feels that with every foil, every bottle, every drip of hairdye, I'm changing myself for the better. Shallow, perhaps, but I like to think of it this way: your hair is an outfit you have to wear EVERY DAY. You need to love it. Feel good with it. It has to flatter your face and fit your personality - if it doesn't, you feel like something is...off. It's impossible to be in a good mood with bad hair.

Ok, so all of that said, my hair has seen quite a few colors this summer. After doing the box thing for months, I decided to haul my cheap self into a salon and get REAL color. Sure, it was expensive and time-consuming, but the colorist had to undo months of crappy color that I had inflicted on myself. Salon #1: took 5 hours and hundreds of dollars, but the redness of Natural Instincts Spiced Tea was officially gone.

Back to medium brunette. Now what? I felt boring. I felt like I blended in. I felt blah and unattractive. Highlights were calling my name. I spent a week scouting out inspirationalyet realistic pictures from magazines and Victoria's Secret catalogs. Time for salon #2 (I'm a salon whore - rarely go to the same one twice). Armed with pictures of Shenae Grimes - who, by the way, I think might be 15 years old but has unbelievably gorge hair - I told my colorist I wanted soft caramel or honey highlights for an overall lighter look. An hour later, I sat there with fine stripes of Big Bird yellow throughout my hair. Another day, another color screw-up. F me.

Instead of buying a box to conceal my streaks, I decided not to be stupid. I went about my daily business and waited for them to somehow blend together and look half decent. They never did. That's when I called Cutler, a NYC salon I read a lot about on CitySearch, to once and for all, give me a decent head of highlights. Prices weren't too extreme, but the reviews were glowing, so I knew this would be a good match for me. My colorist here miraculously made me much lighter - a feat no other colorist has attempted successfully - however, my hair was flirting more with the strawberry/reddish blonde family than the light honey brown one. 

I was only half happy with the results. Look, my skin is pink. I'm slightly freckled. Combine the two and essentially, my hair matched my skin, which is not a pretty picture. Again, I waited it out and hoped the color would "grow on me" because, let's face it, it was a big change, but it wasn't necessarily an ugly color. However, the turning point for me happened yesterday at around 2PM on a sunny Brooklyn street, as I was going about my daily business.

A-hole, early 20s: Hey, sexy!

Me: (no response)

A-hole, early 20s: Yo, redhead, over here!

Me: (no response. getting annoyed. Is he making fun of me?)

A-hole, early 20s: Hey, firecrotch, I'm TALKIN to you!

It was at that point I re-routed to the nearest CVS and bought myself the ashiest damn boxcolor I could find in an attempt to get rid of all evidence I might indeed be a firecrotch (I cringe as I type that). I knew that Natural Instincts, being a semi-permanent color, washes out in 24 shampoos, and tends to not produce a dramatic color like other dyes would, so I grabbed a box in Tweed, a light ash brown. After ten minutes, the magic potion transformed my light copper highlights into a less, uh, attention-getting light brown. I'm not as light as I would have liked to be, so I'm heading back to the store to pick up some Prell today - the stuff works wonders for fading too-dark haircolor. 

Will I ever be 100% happy with my haircolor? Doubtful, seeing as how I'm this color chameleon. But at this point in my life, all I want is to a) not look like Big Bird, b) not look like a zebra, and c)not be called firecrotch. I don' t think that's too much to ask.