I think I was around 14 when I first started dying my hair and absolutely frying it with the Babyliss steam straighteners, do you remember those? Since then I've been obsessed with changing my hair, not in a bad way at all but I just love playing with it. Bored - dye my hair. Stressed - dye my hair. These locks have taken an utter bashing over the years and up until probably turning thirty my hair was quite happy with the situation, but I guess something about turning thirty for me at least, meant my hair saying "screw you I've had enough". Having been every colour under the sun in the past ten years, I guess it was inevitable.
From then on when I lightened my hair it would just feel more and more dead and then started to break off starting with the top layer around three inches from my scalp! I've been ever so tempted to just chop it all off, but that terrifies me and the thought of looking like Tweedle Dee for a few years made me want to run for the hills.
So I left it. I left my hair as it was and decided to grow it out and for a good 8 or so months it starting growing wonderfully, looking healthier, longer, stronger; And then I went and bleached it again. I guess old habits die hard, but this time it taught me a serious lesson, because although my new roots were quite happy to indulge in the blonde, the midst and lengths hadn't forgotten their previous torture so decided to stand more brittle and drier than ever. I finally knew what people meant by hair feeling like chewing gum when wet, so then and there after quickly regretting undoing all my efforts I decided to start again, ditching the bleach.
This brings us to now. It's been about 4 months now of growing it all out and I have to say although it could still do with being mostly chopped off, it is feeling a lot different and I can really feel the benefits of decent products, less heat and less dyes in my hair. One thing I am struggling with though is a super dry itchy scalp which is bizarre as you'd think it would have been worse when bleaching, but I'm sure I'll sort that in time. My hair is starting to resemble hair again which is pretty nice and I'm going to try my hardest to stay away from the dye and instead opt for toning conditioners or maybe even some semi fun colours from time to time. I do actually really like it and think it does make my eyes pop quite well.
I've also started seeing the odd jet white hair, which to be honest so far I've just pulled out as they stick straight up in the air and feel like wire! But I'm all for going grey so perhaps this will soon be mixed in too.
Constantly changing my hair and looks I think is all part of my constant need to better myself because I've never felt good enough, so as I'm dealing with that already I think this is the perfect time to accept my hair for whatever it wants to be and embrace what nature has decided I need to be crowned with. I really really hope I don't fall off the dye wagon again, but I just need to keep that horrible strawy gum feeling hair in my memory and I'll never buy it again!
Are you a hair dye addict like I was?
