Searching for the mythical "good" change

[indigo_rose99]

I hate change.  Hate it when they rearrange my grocery store.  Hate it when they move the lanes on a route I drive home.  Hate it when they change the signs and a lane that used to go one direction, now goes another direction.  Hate driving in places I have never been.  Hate going first into a restaurant I have never entered.  Hate it when I realize that fashion has made some drastic change 5 years ago and I am only now noticing.  Hate it when one of my fav authors dies.  Hate meeting new people.  Hate going to a party at someone's house who doesn't know me well and then they get all mad when I get bored and read a book.

You can see why I don't get out much.

And somehow this translates to being logical that I do not wear makeup (outside of Halloween) and I do not dye my hair.  Those would be change.  Not to mention "work."

A few months ago I decided to try out henna on my hair.  I have always wanted to have a bit more red in my hair... Red hair is so pretty!  And while my brown hair with its blond streaks is very nice...  Well, I still like the idea of red.  And I have ZERO desire to have a stranger put massive quantities of chemicals on it.  Bleh.  Trust, not my thing.  Henna is supposed to be good for my hair (so says Lush) and washes out in reasonably short order if I hate it.

So I bought one that was supposed to be brown with reddish highlights.  I tried it and.... I successfully colored my blond streaks the exact same color as the rest of my hair.  Brown.  Boring.

It has since faded, my blond streaks coming back.  This time, I bought the red block of henna.  Keeping in mind that it will impact my blond more than my brown, I was really paranoid.  I only kept the henna on my hair for the minimum suggested time (20-60 minutes; I went for the 20).  As it dries, I'm convinced that my blond streaks have a reddish tinge. 

This could be good or horrible. 

So if you see me in the next month, it is OK to comment that my hair looks different.  It is not your imagination.  At least, I hope.

Later:  Evidently my henna-ed hair failed the husband test.   Thirty minutes, and he has not noticed any change.

Still later:  He insists that this is a completely unfair test, since he immediately noticed when I was in reasonable light.  He swears that his status as Wonderful Husband should not be damaged by this clearly faulty report made in very dim lighting.

Comments

[sclatter.livejournal.com]

I tried some henna based stuff once and it didn't do a dang thing for me, either. Now I just use the permanent stuff. At home, myself. Really, I'm mostly going for gray coverage. I work with worse chems all day every day so I don't really worry about it. :-)

[indigo-rose99.livejournal.com]

Does that make you braver, or simply more confident with scary chemicals? I'm voting competent and confident.

[sclatter.livejournal.com]

Scary is relative, I guess. You just have to be aware of your risks. The biggest health risk is having an allergic reaction, so all the dyes will tell you to test for that in advance. There is some noise about potential carcinogens, though no increased cancer rates have been shown in users of hair dye. There has been evidence that stylists who work with color for years may be at higher risk. Basically I would only worry about that if I were pregnant.

Really, I think the biggest risk is making myself look funny. :-)

[pamwheatfree.livejournal.com]

Once, at Halloween, I tried a highlighter red from the store. It was temporary and was guaranteed to wash out in two to three weeks. I can't remember how long I kept it on my hair. Out of 30 friends at the Halloween party, only two with really good color vision noticed the change. In fact, they didn't recognize me because I had a mask on, but they knew the hair was the wrong color for me. Apparently, I picked a color that was also too close to my own.

[indigo-rose99.livejournal.com]

Now the husband says that in bright light, he can see the difference. Auburn on my brown hair, strawberry blond on the blond streaks. This sounded like the tasteful change I was going for. I guess I didn't really want anything DRASTIC.

Perhaps sometime when I have no work for weeks I will go for something more dramatic...

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Red hot mama hair.

And lots of it.