A Nice Girl Gets a Nice Hairdo, and Then.....

Once upon a time, about two years ago, a nice girl decided to treat herself to a nice hair makeover. A super-fancy, super-expensive cut, color, and highlighting (ash blonde on chocolate brown). This girl was extremely happy with the results, and felt like a movie star flouncing that hair around. Her hair was not only blonder than ever (usually at-home colors turned her brown hair a weird copper color), but the texture had changed in such a way that it held a curl for more than five minutes with less than two bottles of hairspray. It was a happy time in this girl's life, full of non-ponytail days and compliments galore.

Then the hair grew out. As it grew out, the blonde highlights started to look a little weird. So, this girl put a semi-permanent, light brown color on top of it all to smooth things out a bit. This new hair looked okay, but was not as fun and excited as the super hairdo was. People talked less about the hair than they used to. The girl started to think about heading back to the salon for some new highlights. But, alas, the budget would not allow. So, this girl did the only thing she could think.

She dropped 25 bucks on an at-home highlighting kit.

In defense of this product, it was August. It was at least 40 degrees in the apartment. This girl was tired, and impatient, and probably didn't give her highlight application the time and attention it deserved because her arms were tired, and sweat was dripping everywhere, and the dog was growling at the mailman. The brush on the tiny applicator wand bent under desperate strokes. The box said to lay the highlights on top of the normal hair, that the color would not bleed. Maybe it was the sweat, or the heat, or the careless application, but that color did bleed. And the color, of course, was not the color on the box. It was fluorescent. And the splotches, oh the splotches.

After much internet researching, this girl discovered that if you have had professional highlighting or bleaching of any kind done, it is usually a good idea to have the color neutralized or something like that before attempting an at-home color. Huh.

The girl also discovered that to fix any major screw-ups like this one, it is best to return to a stylist. However, this girl could not afford this option, especially after spending 25 bucks on the color in the first place. So, the girl put a semi-permanent ultra-dark color on top, and it turned out not so bad.

Now, today this girl took a trek to Pharmaprix because this girl's cat threw her deodorant off the dresser and it crumbled into tiny non-usable pieces. On-sale in this pharmacy was the same at-home highlighting kit. Like $8 off. So, this girl decided to give it another chance, now that the weather is nice and cool, and her hair has not been bleached for over two years.

We will see how it turns out, but I have a feeling that if her hair turns out splotchy or neon colored or both, this girl will be sending someone at L'Oreal a strongly worded letter.