Orange is Not the Business

by Nicole
(Fayetteville, NC)

At the tender age of 17 I learned the hard way to never ever let an untrained and certified friend do anything chemically altering to my hair. I wanted to be hip, "in", and fresh and thought a dye job would do just the trick.

Taking a hint from various magazines and other friend's unique looks, I chose the color purple as my new hair color and set about buying the ingredients my then best friend said I would need to complete my transformation.

There were many warning signs that should have told me to bolt for the door. The old bottle of hair bleach she pulled from under the bathroom counter that was behind stacks of toilet paper, her look of helplessness as I released my afro-textured hair from it's pony tail holder, the less then sufficient jar of Manic Panic sitting on the counter, but I didn't know better and expected to have beautiful amethyst locks that would spill out from under the towel when we were done.

The hair bleach held a noxious scent and without mixing it with a powder or even using an applicator brush, the harsh liquid was poured onto my hair and rubbed in as if it was some kind of moisturizer. She instructed me to leave it in while we had a clove together on the porch. Her constant looks of concern at my hair passed by me unnoticed...or maybe I thought she was just checking to make sure the bleach was taking.

Time crept by until after 20 or so minutes we went into the kitchen to rinse. That jar of dye would have to wait. Upon the water touching my precious locks, bits and pieces of my mane tumbled into the steel basin. She washed me out with a shampoo I had never heard of and wrapped the towel around my head. There was no smile on her face, no shrieks of "Wow!", nothing. The reality hit me that something had to be wrong.

I tipped toed into the bathroom holding my breath and hoping I'd reveal the nice snow blonde hair that would bring me one step closer to the grape mane I craved. The removal of the towel proved otherwise as I found myself face to face with a teenage girl sporting nuclear orange hair. Hair so orange it was brassy and brazen. There was no way of mistaking that this was a dye job gone wrong.

Upon my hair drying it was brittle and snapped easily in my fingers. Within weeks I had gone from being able to do a little pony tail to have to wear a scarf and bobby pins. Instead of cutting it off and starting over, I merely kept the style and color, hoping no one would notice...and everyone did.