Clairol and the Single Girl: Only her hairdresser knew for sure.

Frivolity: ready yourselves, team. This post is a bit...frivvy.

So, those of you who know me, know (or can guess) that the lovely dark auburn locks I've had for over 15 years are "mine" only in the sense that they aren't a Dynell wig and they're not a very lifelike 3-D projection, but pssst, I dye it. Like every 3 weeks. So this past Sunday I dyed my hair as usual, which I HATE to do but HATE roots more, and lo and behold I was left with medium brown hair, as if I had taken my roots and pulled them over my whole head. At first my reaction was "FUH!" But then I decided to live with it for a few days and see how it went.

When I first dyed my hair I was 15 (oh, wait, did I say I've been dying it for over 15 years? I mean, I was 4. Hey, I was precocious!) and my friend Maria, with whom I was dying, said "Oh my gosh, you're a redhead!" And it was really true. I loved how my hair looked when I looked in the mirror at me and my dark skinned Scicilan boyfriend at the time (I thought we looked so iconic, like a real world Tom and Nicole) and I kept it up for years. I felt like something special, something rare. I felt that my unusual hair color reflected the real me: weird, rare, special.  I couldn't imagine myself as any other color. But I'll tell ya (and those of you who color your hair to a shade found in nature can probably feel me here) it's not the upkeep, it's not the effort, it's the PUBLIC that's your main problem.

I spent the next 16 or so years biting my tongue when jerky strangers would ask "Is that your real hair?" The options: 1) lie. (which I did, telling half the truth: "It's mostly white", leaving them to draw their own conclusions) 2) Tell the truth "I DYE MY HAIR YOU NOSY PARKER. YA HAPPY NOW?" 3) point at something in the middle distance and run away.

I mean, what's it to them? These questions made me feel like I was hiding something shameful (my natural hair color) by dying it, and when I would look at "other" people who dyed their hair red and were unapologetic about it, I would see "HER" (cue horror movie scream): you know who I'm talking about: the large goth with a pin straight eggplant bob and unflattering lipstick and an ill fitting tee shirt that says "I only do what the voices in my head tell me to do."   Eek. So, no, I don't dye my hair and I for sure don't dye it RED, I mean, only to cover these white hairs, you know? 

Also, I was one of a group: brownette (Jess), diry blonde (Amanda) silver fox (Xtine), white blonde (Irene), and me. All those ladies I mentioned are very good looking and in a way I felt like I didn't want to hear a guy say "No, the HOT brown haired one" one day. With so few redheads out there, such comparisons were not likely to occur. I know it sounds a bit silly, especially since I had a few friends with actual, natural red hair (strawberry blonde, where I was darker), but such is the clockworks of female vanity.

I *was* my red hair. I thought of my self as a redhead. My clothes and persona were chosen to highlight this fact. I was locked in.

Then I moved here, and 1) surprisingly, red hair dye doesn't really sell to jet black haired Asians, so it was hard to find my shade 2) I sort of got over it when I got blonde highlights. Originally I wanted strawberry blonde, almost orange, highlights, but they went blonde, so I went with it. The result: a Neapolitan Sundae of hair. Blonde, light auburn, and dark brown (looking darker due to the blonde) at the roots. After reading Mary Elizabeth from Salon's essay about having to stop dying her hair due to minor scalp surgery, where her technician told her "wow, you've got a few colors going back here, eh?" (Including white, which I also do have almost half a head of at this point), I had to think "Will this be me someday"? After having a hair cutter cut too short, giving me a badass 1990's "fade" of two colors by accident years ago, I had to laugh ruefully in recognition.

For women, hair is a big deal. It's who you are. I mean, are there male dumb blondes and male brunette secretaries? Not so much. And there are NO ads geared towards men that say "Make her drop her romance novel red" like those ads for hair dye that came out a few years ago "Make him drop the remote red" and "Make him come home early blonde."
 I made a piece of artwork once for a male friend on "the male redhead" (he was a red head), but other than that and a coffee table book I once saw, I can't recall ANY art or fashion pictorials on male hair color.So men can have white, grey, brown, black, or no hair, and it's all the same, or nearly so. Personally, I love red hair on a man, but mostly because I love the personality and heritage that usually comes with these guys (Irish brawler) and I like the idea of having a unicorn boyfriend. Over here I have two choices: black or white blonde (white blonde is a Korean rock star who's being a bad ass with 6 inches of black roots). Good think black hair is my first choice on a man, eh?

But for women, our hair color defines us in a very real way, and when I first saw my brown hair, I felt let down and crushed, as if someone had told a secret about me I was ashamed of. Thinking about it, I thought "Do you think that you have to have a certain hair color to be yourself? I decided to try to find my way to answering "No."

Being here has been about slowing throwing away those things about me I thought were "permanent": being the party girl, being the social hub, being the hottest one in every room, being the artsy one, and having red hair, being a "dame", a flirt, a certain kind of woman, being an eternal student, being a rebel.... That was who I was, and (not entirely by choice) that's not me anymore.

Now I join the ranks of famous brownies through the ages, including Natalie Wood, Audrey Hepburn, Olvia Wilde, (Hey, the other Olivia that I like, Olivia Palermo as well, come to think of it), countless magazine editors who want to look "patrician" and Angelina Jolie. Hey, if Angie can rock it, so can I.

We'll see. I mean, natural hair is much more Ralph Lauren, don't you think?