Oh My Word - I'm Turning Blonde!

There I was (last week), minding my own business, brushing my hair (which has always been a chestnutty, auburny colour - not sure if I'm a reddish brunette or a brunetty redhead?) and what did I find? A crop ... a whole CROP ... of blonde hair. Ash blonde to be precise. Some may say it was 'grey' but it definitely looked ash blonde to me ;-) I must admit to having found the odd 'blonde' hair before, but never this many all in one place - perhaps they were having some sort of meeting? Planning their takeover of my hair? :-O In the past I've always just pulled them out - yes, I know all about the Old Wive's Tale which says if you pull one grey hair out then another 2/3/4/etc. will grow in its place. But it's just an old wive's tale: I'm not an old wife, so surely it wouldn't apply to me?

Hair is funny stuff isn't it? I can remember my smalls asking me when they were younger 'Why doesn't hair bleed when you cut it?' (I said it had no veins in it and veins are what carry blood round our bodies). In my experience most of us want the hair that we haven't got. Those with curls long for poker-straight silky hair; those with heavy straight hair wish for waves and curls; brunettes long to be blonde, and vice versa. It's the human condition I guess - to want what we don't have?

My hair has been short, long, curly and straight in my lifetime. It's naturally wavy - I'm very lucky - I can use the hairdryer or straighteners to make it straight, or I can scrunch it up to make it wavy. I've had hair as long as midway down my back, and as short as ... well, short! When I was at college I had one of those shaggy permy things that people were having at the time - I loved it, but being me, got bored with it.

One afternoon my friend 'F' and I (yes, the same 'F' who helped out when No.1 and I were so poorly last month - we've known each other since we were 5!) bunked off college, caught a bus into Oxford and walked into a salon. Perhaps we should have been perturbed by the lack of other customers there, but we weren't. We both had our hair cut extremely short. When we came out of the hairdressers, we sprinted to Selfridges (which is now Primark ... pah! Even the shops are dumbing down) and into the Ladies' to use their huge mirrors to assess the damage. I remember thinking 'Oh sh*t ... what have I done?' We applied copious amounts of make up to try to detract from the hair situation - but of course what was done was done. We hopped on a bus back to college, where I was totally ignored by people who knew me very well. This was to be the most common response from others ... they just didn't recognise me. I don't know whether my shaggy 'do' was simply synonymous with 'me' or what, but for a good month afterwards people would walk past me in the street, in pubs (oops, I shouldn't have been in the pub should I ... not officially old enough to drink? *blush*) - in short, everywhere.

When I got home from college that teatime I walked into home through the back door. Mum was in the kitchen cooking, she turned round to say 'hello' and her mouth just fell open. She started doing a very good impersonation of a fish: no sound, just plenty of jaw movement, and a look of shock on her face. I've grown it and had it cut short again twice since then, but that was the most drastic haircut I ever had.

So, back to my dilemma. What to do about this 'blonde' thing? Do I embrace it as a badge of honour of my age and experience? Do I hurtle into new found 'blondeness' with abandon, hoping the old adage is true and that I'll have more fun? Or do I cover over the 'blonde' with some chemicals, thereby prolonging the illusion of youthful hair? Yep, I thought the latter too.

I must admit I wandered into Boots the Chemist's at the weekend. I found the 'hair colourants' aisle, and stood there looking ... there are ZILLIONS of them! Permanent ones, semi-permanent ones, wash in-wash out ones, ones in mousses, ones in boxes, ones in tubes, ones in sachets. For a start, I'm not putting anything 'permanent' on my hair ... what if it went green? Or that lavender colour favoured by old ladies (and Dame Edna Everage)? Or it went too dark and I ended up looking like Morticia Addams? Surely a colour in a mousse runs the danger of ending up on one's pillow? I did purchase a box (not just the box, obviously ... it has chemicals, words and weird big plastic 'hands' inside). It's a semi-permanent thing that will apparently wash out in around 24 washes. It says it's 'Reddish Brown' which sounds about right. Next time I see one of those 'blonde' hairs, I'm putting these chemicals straight on my hair - I'll let you know how I get on.

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