The Power of Hair

I am not one to put TOO much emphasis on my hair. I like it enough; it keeps my head warm, and makes me look like a female. But I don't go to the salon and spend my entire paycheck on my hair. Normally, if my roots are screamingly obvious, I'll buy a box of DIY haircolor. I have no particular brand or shade or even color that I am loyal to. (Life is far too short to have only one hair color.) Then, I stand in my bathroom in my underwear (or naked if my mom is not having a hot flash, and turned the house into a freezer) and dye my hair myself. I am very careful to put cotton around my ears, and get as much of the drips as possible. If anything does get on my skin, I try very hard to rub it off with astringent. That is what I normally do.

Well, after months of wearing my boss down, he finally sort-of said yes to my having pink hair. Now, I agreed to put it only on the underside of my hair, so no one could see the pink if I had my hair in a ponytail. (unless of course they were behind me). This was perfectly acceptable, and I agreed to get it colored over if the pink was causing issues with the guests.

Well, I knew that the only way to get pink was to bleach my hair. I thought that it would be better to go to a professional, so I didn't totally fry it. This is where it all goes downhill.

Close to our house is a place called the "HAIR COLOR CENTER". The man who owns the place, Angelo, is the former technical advisor for Clariol. He's not the reason that I went there, but he's the one who, as they said "took care" of me. I wasn't really impressed by the other women sitting there, but they were all middle-aged women who were bleaching their hair beyond reason. This young girl came out and had me sit down, and Angelo was "consulting" someone else. I waited about 15 minutes, and the girl had me sit down into the consulting chair. Angelo sits down and asks me what I want. I told him that I wanted pink on the underside and ruby red everywhere else, and I needed a trim. Well, he REFUSED to do pink. He insisted that it he couldn't do it, and that he'd have to make the color. And, that the color would end up an bright orange. Whatever. He plopped this big thing of hair color swatches in my lap and said "look at these for a minute". I could tell he really wasn't interested in doing my hair properly. There was one bright ruby color that I liked for the rest of my hair. So I thought, "hey, I'll just get red, and get out of here". Not what happened.

I sat in the chair for a while, while Angelo ran around and helped the other hairstylists. Then he came back, grabbed a bunch of hair in the back, and made a face in the mirror. Then he disappered into the back, only to return a few minutes later with a bottle of what appeared to be hair dye. He rubbed that stuff all over my roots, and let it sit for about 10 minutes. It burned, but not enough for me to think that it mattered. Then, he comes out and puts a darker color on the rest of my hair. This is when I really got concerned. He got a huge blob of hair dye on my forehead, near the hair line. And left it there. He left my hair down, with the dye in it, which stained my ears and neck. I couldn't wear my glasses, so I was pretty blind, which only made me more nervous because I couldn't see how the other women in the salon turned out. He left the dye in my hair for about 15 minutes, before he came out and placed a timer for 30 minutes on the table. And I sat there. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Throughout this time, the young girl is periodically staring at my head with a worried look on her face.

Saved by the bell, the buzzer went off and Angleo has me go back so the girl can shampoo my hair. (Note that by now, the stuff that Angelo put on my roots has been on my hair for about a hour.) She did a nice job, and was pretty sweet. She shampoos my hair twice, and then Angelo comes back and tells her to do it once more. (I'm sortof freaking at this point, but I didn't show it) When she finished, Angelo tells her not to rinse out all of the conditionar, and she says under her breath, "I know". This made me really, really nervous. WIth my hair still pretty wet, I sat down in the chair. I could tell immediately that something was wrong, and I couldn't see hardly at all! Angelo proceeded to blow dry my hair, and as it dries I notice the roots getting lighter and lighter. When he was all done, I put my glasses on, and I felt my heart sink. My roots were bright ORANGE, while the rest was a dark red. To make it worse, there was a dark, almost black, stripe between the roots and the rest of my hair. Angelo is chirping in the background about how glad he was that he "talked me out" of getting pink, and that I should come back in 5 weeks for a touch-up and some blond streaks. What the Hell?! I told him several times that I hated streaks, and wanted only solid colors. This made me so mad. But I didn't say anything. I kept my mouth shut, and now I'm mad that I did. I paid $60, including tip (I think I was in shock) for something that I could have done at home for $8, and not had orange roots. I didn't even get a trim, which I reminded him about twice! This is not at all what I wanted, and I wish I had just gotten up and walked out during the consultation. But I learned a lesson I suppose. Never, ever let anyone touch my hair.

A women who is a customer at the Pharmacy is a hairdresser, and she said it is going to turn all over orange if I'm not super careful. She said it might not if I stay out of the sun, but that will prove impossible, because Stefan and I are going to Busch Gardens this weekend. What is a girl to do? What would you do in my position?

Would you ask for a refund now, or would you chaulk it up to experience? I think I should get a refund, but wait to see if I turn into carrot-top after Saturday. What do you think?