When did you first go blonde?
I’m proud to say I have always been a version of blonde. However, it was freshman year in high school (age fourteen) when I was allowed to play with blonde highlights, which helped me get out of the dirty-blonde category and subsequently changed my life forever.
Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?
I dabbled with the world of at-home root coloring for about three years under the guidance of a wonderful blonde roommate, none other than Miss Selena Coppock. I was able to save money and look fabulously blonde. About four years ago I went back to having my hair professionally colored in preparation for my wedding (for fear I’d be too brassy in photos). I have followed three different colorists since then. Each one does his or her own version of blonde, and sometimes I like to switch it up.
Do you love life as a blonde?
I don’t even have to think to answer this—yes, yes, and yes.
Alison S. (California blonde, world traveler)
What’s your worst hair disaster?
Living in Italy, I was frequently referred to as La Bionda. I liked to refer to this notion as “the importance of being blonde.” The attention I received thanks to my hair color was everlasting and I relished every moment—well, almost every one. As a natural bionda, I would add just some shimmering, sun-kissed highlights every few months to my dark-blonde base. That, plus a beach tan, was my greatest weapon with the Italian men. However, one time, I decided that I wanted to be more natural, more organic, more biologico, as Italians call it. I had been dabbling with using chamomile shampoos and lemon-juice-infused conditioners with great success. A thought occurred to me: Why not try chamomile flowers for highlights? I envisioned these beautiful golden locks, like little baby flowers flowing from my crown. My friend accompanied me to the farmacista (the pharmacies in Europe are a fabulous cross between an apothecary, pharmacy, and beauty supply shop), and I bought a little box of chamomile flower hair dye. At home I mixed the flowers and stems along with water for a thick paste and lathered my hair. After letting the flowery mix set for about forty-five minutes, I washed, rinsed, and blow-dried. I took a look in the mirror. Not much difference. My hair looked a little changed, but I couldn’t really tell. In fact, it might even look a bit darker? No, that couldn’t be! So I convinced myself that there really wasn’t any difference . . . and then I had a snickering little thought: My hair was probably already becoming so blonde naturally from the sun that even chamomile wouldn’t work anymore! I had achieved a new height in natural blondeness!
That afternoon, I set out to see some university friends in the piazza. Our normal habit was to have lunch in the huge square in the center of the city. Generally there were about thirty of us hanging out and chatting about our day. I sat down in the warm, golden sun . . . and that’s when it started. A girl I knew who we referred to as Buja (and which I later found out was not a very nice nickname, as it’s a derivative of liar) yells out and says, “Alison, che cosa hai fatto ai capelli?”—translated, “Alison, what did you do to your hair?” Everyone whirls around to see what La Bionda did to her hair. I smiled questioningly. What the hell did she see that I hadn’t? Had she noticed it had gotten darker? Did I leave traces of chamomile stems on my scalp and golden tresses? Did my hair smell bad from the chamomile mixture? Goddamn it, that guy Angelo I am in love with is here too—run! As Buja came closer, everyone stared deeply into my skull. And then she let it fly: “Ma sei VERDE!!!!” Translation: “You’re GREEN!” And that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks: The change I had seen in my tiny bathroom, which by the way had no window or natural light but only a little lightbulb in the upper far corner, was not one of a darker color. Instead, the light hinted towards a different color . . . MOSS GREEN! And now the sun, which I always thought was one of my hair’s biggest allies, was an added spotlight to this horrible mistake! I was mortified. I spent the next hour defending my hair color and whether I was truly a natural bionda to my friends. Needless to say, I quickly made an afternoon appointment with Fabio (yes, the local VIP hairdresser was Fabio) and proceeded to enjoy a very toxic and enlightening dye job, returning my locks to a normal RGB value of blonde.
When did you first go blonde?
I was born blonde, but I’ve been doing highlights since my early twenties to give my tresses a bit more glow.
Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?
I have a new colorist, Marcus, who only uses 100 percent certified organic hair color and products. I’ve come a long way from the chamomile hippie flowers.
Do you love life as a blonde?
Yes, 100 percent. I’ve had brief snippets where I thought of going dark brown à la Liv Tyler, but I just can’t do it! I’m a blondie, tried and true.
Kendra C. (platinum blonde, fellow Masshole comedienne)
What’s your worst hair disaster?
My worst hair experience was in the tenth grade. I was just starting to branch out from Sun-In (peroxide in a plant spray bottle) and start experimenting with L’Oréal Preference home coloring products, and I couldn’t find a box with a picture of the exact shade of blonde I wanted so I decided to mix a few together to get a unique and unusual shade of blonde. It was a failed experiment that resulted in my mother stripping all the color from my hair and sending me off to my all-girls Catholic school the next morning with a head full of colorless hair.
When did you first go blonde?
I started coloring my hair with Sun-In during the summer before the eighth grade. My hair has a lot of red in it naturally, so most of July I was a brassy mess, but by August my hair was such a bright yellow, nobody even noticed my braces anymore!
Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?
I have a strong relationship with my colorist now. We’ve been together for over five years. I know her husband. I’ve moved from salon to salon with her. We’ve smoked pot together. It’s pretty serious.
Do you love life as a blonde?
I love life as a blonde, but I must admit I have always wanted to be ethnic. Olive skin, black hair, body confidence. C’mon, sounds so stress-free.
Jackie H. (bold, brilliant bright-blonde businesswoman)
What’s your worst hair disaster?
I can immediately recall. I was twenty-five and had just moved to NYC and was busily taking the city for all it was worth. This meant I was spending all disposable income eating and drinking and taking taxis everywhere. I had let my roots grow out to the point where I really couldn’t get away with it anymore but also couldn’t afford one of the more upscale salons that I was used to. I decided I would go to this random place in midtown, and since I couldn’t spring for highlights, I would just do a one-process bleaching of sorts to get rid of the roots. Big mistake. Huge. I emerged looking like the long-lost fourth child from The Simpsons. When I went to work the next day, it was clear from the response of my coworkers that something had to be done ASAP. You would think I’d learned my lesson. Nope. Again looking for the cheap way out, I headed to CVS to fix the problem on my own. I picked a darker shade of boxed blonde, thinking it would lessen the Simpson-esque hue I was now sporting. To my surprise, my hair instead turned gray. I’m talking Dorothy from The Golden Girls. I wandered outside and was walking around my block, crying and trying to figure out my next move when I stopped on a bench to sit. Luckily, since I lived in Greenwich Village at the time, I realized I was sitting outside of a fancy salon. I had no choice. I wandered in and just looked at the receptionist. No words were needed and she sprang into action. I spent the next four hours in that salon, and my hair was so fried they feared it would actually fall out of my head. Eventually the problem was somewhat fixed, but not without a period of slightly orange locks and a costly fee. At that point I would have paid any amount. And that’s the story about the time I paid my rent two weeks late because I needed to get my hair done.
When did you first go blonde?
I was born blo
nde but gradually darkened to brunette as I aged. Sophomore year in high school I began to reverse this trend—good old Sun-In on a family vacation to Florida. I never looked back.
Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?
Colorist (see aforementioned story in which I learned the importance of professional color the hard way).
Do you love life as a blonde?
I will never go back, so I guess that means I do.
Ginny V. (natural blonde with virgin hair)
Here’s a formative story about growing up as a natural blonde. I think the realization when I was pretty young that people regularly marveled at the color of my hair made me much more aware of how special it was to be a natural blonde.
My parents and a friend and I went to Benihana for my tenth birthday. We happened to be seated near a table of visiting Japanese businessmen (why they were dining at Benihana in Cincinnati, Ohio, during their travels, I don’t pretend to know). Benihana was always an entertaining place, and it was perfect for my birthday at the time. All the knife tricks by the chef, the novelty of a dinner performance—it was all really silly and festive. After we were settled in for a while, my parents noticed that the group of businessmen kept looking at our table, and they were looking intently at me, sitting with my blonde hair below my ears, in an oversize purple wool sweater from Talbots. After lots of gesturing of the international motion for “will you take a picture,” we realized they wanted to take a picture of me. In a kitschy tourist restaurant in southern Ohio that can only remind them of a Disneyfied version of home, the real novelty is the blonde American child. We figured out they must not have seen anyone so blonde before in Japan, and it was clearly worth taking home a picture as a souvenir.
Alison J. (California blonde, also a lucky hair color virgin)
What’s your worst hair disaster?
The day someone said my hair was starting to get darker. Those are fighting words in a blonde’s world.
When did you first go blonde?
Born with it and will die with it. That’s the only way of life for a blonde.
Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?
Being a natural blonde has its perks—no coloring for me! When my hair darkens in the winter, I spend my summers soaking in the sun to bring my hair back to platinum status. And getting a sick tan. The two go hand in hand.
Do you love life as a blonde?
There is nothing better than being a blonde. It’s a way of life that only blondes understand. To my fellow blonde bombshells (and you know who you are), keep on rocking on.
Stephanie M. (ashy blonde with fantastic body and curls)
What’s your worst hair disaster?
In high school, I was curious to see what the world looked like to a brunette. Unfortunately, I let a friend with extreme Goth tendencies choose the color. Instead of auburn, my hair ended up a vibrant eggplant! I spent the next day in the salon instead of school, getting it stripped out of my hair. It took about two years to slowly highlight my way to normal again.
When did you first go blonde?
I was born a redhead, but within a month, all my hair fell out and grew back in the right color: blonde! And it’s been that way ever since, with the exception of the brief and traumatic period of high school, mentioned above.
Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?
I haven’t lived in my hometown for more than a decade, but I still flew home to my colorist Elizabeth for highlights until early last year, when I finally found an incredible local colorist, Jerami. I’m now preparing for my breakup conversation with Elizabeth.
Do you love life as a blonde?
Yes! I usually am the only blonde in a group, which I love, and it’s also a great excuse any time I do something dumb. The one thing I’m envious of is dark eyebrows—they look so much better in pictures.
Do you have any funny blonde anecdotes?
The only two people I know who’ve accidentally opened doors into their own heads are me and my blonde roommate. (Mine was luckily not bad, but she gave herself a concussion!)
Elizabeth E. (cool, platinum-blonde Cate Blanchett look-alike)
What’s your worst hair disaster?
My worst hair disaster occurred in my early twenties when I moved to California and discovered that apartment complexes like Melrose Place really do exist! I was hanging with a hottie I met at a party one night, and he suggested we take our private party down to the pool. We stripped down for some skinny-dipping (which I’m sure his neighbors and the other partygoers totally appreciated), and all was fun and games until it was time to dry off and rejoin the group. Getting out of the pool, my super-fine blonde hair knotted up into some serious tangles, and I realized I didn’t have any way to comb them out. My crush playfully tried to run his fingers through my wet hair, and his hand literally got stuck in my chlorine-induced snarls. I had no choice but to rejoin the party with a swamp mess on my head. From that day on, I’ve always been sure to carry a brush in my bag!
Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?
I’m not faithful to any one colorist. I go through phases of letting my highlights lapse because I’ve convinced myself that I can return to my natural strawberry-blonde color from high school, then realizing I can’t and running back to the salon for a new burst of blonde. Vicious cycle.
Do you love life as a blonde?
Yes! Every once in a while I fantasize about going deep red à la Lauren Holly from the ’90s and Dumb and Dumber fame, but I love being bright and blonde.
Do you have any funny blonde anecdotes?
This happened to me, I’ll just come out and say it. I once boarded the wrong plane by mistake. The airline had changed the gate, and I didn’t hear the change because I was listening to my headphones. When I did turn off the music and tune in, the flight was boarding. I waited patiently for my zone number (it was the last to board) and then gave the attendant my boarding pass. I made it all the way to my seat at the back of the plane when a panicked announcement came over the speakers: “Attention, passenger Elizabeth E. You have boarded the wrong plane. Please de-plane immediately. Repeat—you are on the wrong plane.” Mortified, I turned and began making the slow climb upstream back towards the front of the plane, enduring the stares and ridicule from my fellow passengers. I heard one guy snigger, “Figures she’s a blonde.”
Glennis M. (blonde who isn’t afraid to change it up and experiment)
What’s your worst hair disaster?
Worst hair disaster was the pixie cut/orange glow I rocked for a while around age twenty-one. It’s still the photo on my driver’s license because, as much as I hate that photo, I am way too impatient to stand in line for a new photo. (This is the year my license expires, so you better believe I’ll be getting my roots done before.)
When did you first go blonde?
I honestly couldn’t tell you when I went blonde. Because my mom’s a hairdresser, I’ve been doing crazy things to my hair my whole life!
Do you have a colorist in your life, or do you color at home?
I have a colorist in my life, and he’s the only man for me. Because my mom was a hairdresser, finding someone to do my hair in New York was not easy. I think that’s something that a lot of women experience. Why is that? Anyway, my hairstylist does my hair in his home. He’s one of my friends from high school who now lives here, and though he doesn’t officially do hair anymore, he will always do mine. He’s fantastic. Not only do I trust him completely with taking me from dark brunette to light blonde, we sing show tunes after he’s done. It’s pretty fantastic.
Do you love life as a blonde?
I loved life as a brunette, and I love life as a blonde. Being a blonde turns all eyes to you when you walk in a room, and what’s not to love about that?
CHAPTER 10
RULE: Spend Some Time on the Dark Side
There exist an inordinate number of quotes about h
ow one must accept and embrace change. These crop up in high school yearbooks, song lyrics, and greeting cards. They inform us that while “everybody’s changing and I don’t know why” (Keane), “time may change me, but I can’t trace time” (David Bowie), and that “that’s just the way it is, things will never be the same/somethings will never change” (Bruce Hornsby or Tupac Shakur depending on which version you prefer). Change is inevitable in life, and what better way to embrace it than through personal aesthetics, specifically hair color?
Supermodel Linda Evangelista is the patron saint of drastic hair changes. She’s a style chameleon, and while such severe changes initially cost her runway jobs, they have become her signature. When Evangelista was a young model in the late 1980s, she cut off her long hair in favor of a pageboy-style haircut and was promptly dropped from all of her runway shows that season. Within months she was featured on numerous magazine covers, her short haircut garnered a lot of buzz, and Evangelista became a style inspiration to many women. Her natural hair color is dark brown, but she has rocked every cut and color imaginable: fierce red, blonde, light brown, and a more natural red. Evangelista was a member of the first class of bona fide supermodels (the others were Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, and the hugely underrated Karen Mulder) but the only one to play with vastly different looks. No wonder she was tapped to be the spokeswoman for L’Oréal Paris, peddling their myriad hair color kits.
In her wake, many celebrities have embraced the color chameleon life, including Madonna, P!nk, Cameron Diaz, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, and Emma Stone. Hair color experimentation has been represented in music, film, and television, too. Who can forget the Brady Bunch episode when Jan was sick of just being Marcia’s equally blonde and long-haired little sister, so she donned an Afro wig and insisted that this look was “the new Jan Brady.” Or in the first Sex and the City film, when Carrie goes brunette and says that her “head is in the witness protection program” after her bridal fashion spread in Vogue and subsequent break-up with Big. Or in the 1985 Carly Simon song “Tired of Being Blonde.”
The New Rules for Blondes Page 9