Confessions of a hair-dyeholic
Enma:
"I've been known to experiment a lot with my hair:
- When I was fifteen I dyed my hair blonde.
- The first part of my college years I had short blonde hair and was nicknamed "Eve" (after the hip hop artist) for a while.
- In college, I also braided my hair with multiple colors, pink, red, blue, purple, green and of course blonde.
- For my sister's wedding, I colored my hair blue and red though it didn't turn out the way I wanted because my already blonde hair reacted with the colors and produced a reddish purple, green and bronze color instead. It wasn't as outrageous as it sounds.
Anyway, I have never valued my hair and so I've always been prepared to cut it off, color it and put all sorts of chemicals in it despite warnings from hair experts and on bottles of the products I toyed with. I have always gotten away with my reckless behaviour until recently.
I was bored with my hair and decided to color it lavendar, pink and then blue - in that order. I knew I would have to bleach my hair first if I wanted the desired color to be visible. I ended up bleaching my hair 3 times within 2 weeks. Two of those times were 2 days apart. In between that, I texturized my hair and when I wasn't satisfied with my hair texture I applied relaxer to it (Yes, I knew I wasn't supposed to apply relaxer to bleached hair). Also, In the middle of all of this I colored my hair twice (pink and lavendar). Crazy right? Most people would be bald by now.
At this point I had become a regular at the beauty store because I kept showing up and buying products that shouldn't be on anyone's hair at the same time. Anyway, I decided to apply relaxer one more time to soften my hair and that's when it happened. My hair finally gave in and said,
"I give up! I can't take this anymore. You're crazy and I don't want to be on your head!"
Yup! You guessed it. My hair fell off. I still had the relaxer on my hair when I combed it and a huge chunk of hair came out. I panicked! I was saying,
"no, no, no, no."
I washed the relaxer off immediately and 3/4 of my hair was gone! I stood quietly and stared at the hairless woman in the mirror. I didn't say a word and didn't know what to think. I think I was in shock. I sat down with my wet hair and said a short prayer while I also told myself,
"it's not the end of the world. It will grow back and you have always wanted to shave your head anyways. Besides, this is all your fault so deal with it."
I thought about how I was bragging about how tough my hair was just a few days before and I smiled to myself and thought,
"God does have a sense of humor."
I admit I was upset and disappointed but I think it was easier for me to handle it because I knew that the fiasco was a consequence of my action. I believe that when we take responsibility for our actions by owning up to them it allows us to move on because we have accepted it and possibly learned from the experience. (Even though, I honestly cannot claim I won't do this again. I'll just try something safer than bleach like a hair dye. I did consider dying my hair blonde instead of bleaching it but I was too impatient to try that because I knew I would have to dye my hair multiple times to get the desired color).
This experience also made me think about how lucky I was that the consequence of my action wasn't a permanent one (at least I hope not, lol). Imagine being reckless enough to cause something that cannot be reversed. I can't imagine the guilt, anger, pain and regret that would accompany such a consequence. I'm sure we have all done or said something we regretted. That's why we all have to be careful and thoughtful. Think before you speak or act. Don't be impulsive. I did learn a lot from this experience or maybe I was reminded of what I already know.
My advice is no matter what you do or say, you're human so don't be too hard on yourself. Take responsibility for your actions, ask God for forgiveness and ask for forgiveness from anyone you have wronged (including yourself), learn from it and move on, away or towards it.
In my case I forgave myself and I moved towards my consequence. I embraced it and now I'm rocking it. Like I said, I always wanted to shave my head so it worked out. Like Romans 8:28 says, "all things work together for good to them that love God." It really does work out - even when your hair runs away from you.
P.S. The pics above are looks from some of my "not so" controversial hair cuts/styles from over the years. Watch out for my new look.
