I’m not aware of any particular study that says hair dye can kill brain cells. I mean if that were true, I’d have the IQ of a roll of wet toilet paper.
I have bleached, foiled and highlighted my hair so many times I think I could give Gene Juarez a lesson or two. There is some thing about hair dye, like piercing or tattoos that is awfully addictive. I sometimes go through worse withdrawals than a crack whore on Ritalin.
It all started in 8th grade, when I wanted to look like Jennifer Anniston. Remember that mysteriously popular haircut she had when Friends first started? Well, my self-esteem was so low back then I decided to follow a trend. Why I chose this one, I don’t know. I think inhaling household chemical fumes was really popular back then, too, and I can’t figure out why didn’t I pick up on that one instead.
Anyway, I cut my hair in the “Friend”ly shag style, and I decided to dye it. I picked a maroon color that clashed so terribly with my skin tone I looked like Joan Rivers would in natural light. Imagine a pale, zitty, 5’10” 14 year-old with purplish maroon hair, a chubby face and no style.
Yuck.
Little did I know I was opening the floodgate to a lifetime of peroxide. I can’t seem to put the bottle down. My hair has been various shades of black, brown, red, blond, orange, blue, and purple.
It has gotten to the point I will dye my hair if I get bored. Last Friday night I was watching TV, and I got the itch. My mind couldn’t get off the powdered bleach I knew was under the sink in the bathroom. I turned to my roommate, Amanda, and said, “I want to dye my hair.”
“Okay,” she said. I think she enjoys putting abrasive chemicals on my head.
Now as an amateur who thinks she’s a professional, I do not have the following— gloves, a hair dryer, a mixing bowl, or a plastic cap. So I put a chair in the kitchen, put on my regular ‘hair dyeing’ robe, and plopped down to let Amanda do the damage. With yellow rubber kitchen gloves, she mixed up the powder and the developer in a Pokemon bowl and preceded to coat my entire head in a chemical designed, I believe, to burn the eyes and scalp of torture victims in the 12th century. Those who have ever gotten an eyeful of peroxide fumes will know what I mean. Whatever the guy did, he talked.
Now I’m no Vidal Sassoon, but I know that bleach needs heat to activate. And like I said before, we have no hair dryer. And I can’t very well pull a Silvia Plath and stick my head in the oven, even if it is electric.
So like the geniuses we are, I put a plastic shopping bag on my head and stuck it in front of the space heater in the bathroom. Rotating my noggin in front of the elements like a greasy jumbo dog at 7-11.
When my hair looks blond enough, (read: my scalp has started to go numb) I jumped into the shower to rinse.
So my hair is blond at this point, and standing straight on end. I can’t even make a smart-ass comment about what I looked like. It was bad. But there’s one more step. Orange. $3.99 from the QFC three blocks from our house. When Amanda puts this on my scalp, I realize there was also one more step in the long since forgotten torture methods of these medieval prison guards. A second dose of peroxide on the open cuticle of a freshly washed hair follicle. How couldn’t I have realized?
So if you’ve ever been curious about the sensation of your head being engulfed by flames, simply follow the steps of this narration. Right down to the Pokemon bowl.
I can’t imagine why I would ever want to do this again. My hair is intact, however, and still orange, but who knows how long that will last.
I’m not doing anything this Friday, I think.