Before I launch into life in St. Louis, I thought I should also mention for those who can’t see me that I am now really quite blonde. That was all a bit of an accident. It started with Eloy (as some of you know, my hairdresser for years and years – who is quite skilled at covering up my increasing number of grey hairs with light streaks) getting bit in his right arm by a dog sometime in July…so I couldn’t get an appointment to see him, and found the decision to try to find a new hairdresser that I thought I could trust just too difficult to face. Much easier was buying a hair dye kit…one with a light brown base with lighter streaks to be added in after the initial all over light brown hair dye (Eloy had been telling me that some day soon we would need to go in this direction – first dyeing all of the hair to cover up that encroaching grey, and then adding highlights to help make it all look “natural”). Anyway…we brought the kit home, and Luismi put the light brown hair dye on, doing what at the time seemed a very thorough job of massaging it in all over my scalp. When I washed it out, I had light brown hair…a bit boring and mousy, but no grey!
The next night Diana carefully painted on the streaks, wrapping each streaked strand up in tin foil. Those came out rather discreetly, but they added some oomph, and I looked much as I have for some time.
But then…something about the light on the top floor of this house here in St. Louis…Luismi and I both realized that when I pulled my hair back and wore it up, there was all of this grey stuff just above both my ears. So we forayed out to Walmart and got a package of hair frosting – blonde highlights for light brown hair. We figured we could highlight those grey bits and get them looking “younger”. It was a fun process. The kit comes with a little cap with lots of little holes, out of which strands of hair are pulled with what looks like a very fine crochet hook. Luismi set to work, poking, hooking and pulling out strands of hair, and after a while my head looked like that of a Pilgrim woman whose cap had sprung a whole bunch of leaks, with veritable gushes coming out above the ears. Then Luismi painted on the frosting, especially lavishing it on those bits. The kit suggested peeking at a strand after 20 minutes, and then after every 5 minutes, to see if the color was enough, with an hour being the maximum amount of time to leave it all on. I figured “what the heck – I’ll leave it 45 minutes”. I set the alarm – upstairs – and we went downstairs to watch TV…so of course I didn’t hear the alarm. So the stuff was doing its lightening work for probably the full hour. When I took off the cap, I was quite alarmed at the yellow gold stripes on the top of my head and especially over the ears. Somehow I thought washing it would make a difference, but there they were when I pulled the towel off my head. Then Luismi came up and saw me and suggested that perhaps drying it would make it better…
In the end, it’s not too bad – I am much blonder than I have been in years, and have these two Lily Munster streaks above my ears. Given that I usually push my hair behind my ears, they are somewhat hidden (and tend to look as if I have some kind of exotic earrings in). If I can get a picture, I’ll share it with you all. I think it has been a kind of good way to shake up the looks a bit…now, how I ever thought Luismi and store-bought hair-coloring kits would be more trustworthy than any hairdresser I could find is beyond me!
The next night Diana carefully painted on the streaks, wrapping each streaked strand up in tin foil. Those came out rather discreetly, but they added some oomph, and I looked much as I have for some time.
But then…something about the light on the top floor of this house here in St. Louis…Luismi and I both realized that when I pulled my hair back and wore it up, there was all of this grey stuff just above both my ears. So we forayed out to Walmart and got a package of hair frosting – blonde highlights for light brown hair. We figured we could highlight those grey bits and get them looking “younger”. It was a fun process. The kit comes with a little cap with lots of little holes, out of which strands of hair are pulled with what looks like a very fine crochet hook. Luismi set to work, poking, hooking and pulling out strands of hair, and after a while my head looked like that of a Pilgrim woman whose cap had sprung a whole bunch of leaks, with veritable gushes coming out above the ears. Then Luismi painted on the frosting, especially lavishing it on those bits. The kit suggested peeking at a strand after 20 minutes, and then after every 5 minutes, to see if the color was enough, with an hour being the maximum amount of time to leave it all on. I figured “what the heck – I’ll leave it 45 minutes”. I set the alarm – upstairs – and we went downstairs to watch TV…so of course I didn’t hear the alarm. So the stuff was doing its lightening work for probably the full hour. When I took off the cap, I was quite alarmed at the yellow gold stripes on the top of my head and especially over the ears. Somehow I thought washing it would make a difference, but there they were when I pulled the towel off my head. Then Luismi came up and saw me and suggested that perhaps drying it would make it better…
In the end, it’s not too bad – I am much blonder than I have been in years, and have these two Lily Munster streaks above my ears. Given that I usually push my hair behind my ears, they are somewhat hidden (and tend to look as if I have some kind of exotic earrings in). If I can get a picture, I’ll share it with you all. I think it has been a kind of good way to shake up the looks a bit…now, how I ever thought Luismi and store-bought hair-coloring kits would be more trustworthy than any hairdresser I could find is beyond me!
