Budget Color

At the strawberry festival, one of the dancers had fantastic short red hair. I actually asked her later about her cut (retired uncle) and color (clairol). Since I've had such trouble with color at the salons recently (scabs on my head after), I decided to do the home job and try my luck with the Clairol color. I picked out a natural medium auburn (#111 improved shade!) and did the allergy test and strand test. I didn't really learn anything from either of these things - kinda sorta allergic, but not so much that I would be worried, and I wanted to leave it on a long time but could take it off early if I had to.

Also to extend my time, they recommend not washing your hair for a day or two to build up natural scalp oils. I looked really skanky at work, but so far so good. I made it through the whole color time with only a couple itchy patches. It's a darker color than usual because at the salon they bleach my natural color simultaneously in order to make it lighter and brighter, but I think it'll work. Certainly my head won't look all dingy now.

I think I did a good job. Salons keep the grey streak in the front from getting color by slathering it in conditioner and rolling it in foil, then avoiding the roots there. I figured this might work elsewhere and ran conditioner around my hairline before starting the application and once again after I cleaned up the edges with ammonia so I wouldn't look like I lost a fight. This seemed to work pretty well too. Then I sat and sat and sat (and did slitherlink puzzles), then rinsed and rinsed and rinsed. And did I mention rinsed?

So while it looks good today, I'll have to see how long it lasts and how much it bleeds out. It was cheaper than a salon by $50 to $90, making it actually possible for me to afford every 6 weeks rather than squeaking it in to the budget every 6 months. I didn't appear to be allergic enough to have bad problems. But it's kind of a pain in the butt and I find it a joy to have other people wash my hair and look for any excuse to not get stuck doing stuff alone in the condo if I can include other people in my activities.

I did manage to avoid the temptation to cut my own hair. Despite good results doing this in the past, I'm worried it'll look like an unfortunate "summer cut" that'll require extensive growing out and I want to at least look like I can afford a professional.

Todays good things:

• My hair is not dingy and there are no scabs.
• My filling at the dentist went smoothly and quickly. I was able to get back for group lunch at SoupPlantation which I've missed the last couple weeks due to appointments.
• My boss is back. We do one-on-ones most every tuesdays. She's just really savvy about the way things work there and I always feel more on track after I talk to her.
• I got some great emails today.
• Gay Marriage has been legal in CA for just over 24 hours and so far we have not turned Nevada into beach front property.