So as I mentioned previously it was time for a change with my hair. I ended up have to put off getting it done because of the covids, but this past Friday I finally got to make it to the salon.

So this is where I started:

My hair grows so fast, it had even grown a significant amount since my professional photos in April (or was it May?) It was LONG. And a total pain in the ass to take care of. It literally took a day to dry all the way after a shower.

When I made my appointment at the salon I was very specific in telling them that however long they thought it would normally take to get the services I was requesting, that they should book me for longer than that because my hair always takes longer than the hair stylist thinks it’s going to. They said no problem they would take care of it.

So I arrive at the salon and get settled into the chair. I show my stylist what I want done and she is a little taken aback by how extreme a change I am looking for. Which makes no sense to me because when I made the appointment I listed all the services I would need which included a full bleach out. Basically, as I expected, despite my best efforts they didn’t book me for enough time to get everything done I needed to get done. Thankfully she was still game though. So off we started on our adventure.

The first thing she did was cut all my hair off. I don’t know how I expected to feel but in the end I didn’t really feel anything. I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t elated. It just was. She was funny though, she asked if she could keep my hair to play with because her and the other stylists like doing color testing on natural hair. Whatever lady, I don’t need it anymore! So now I look like this:

Then the real fun begins. Bleaching out my hair. If you have dark hair and you’ve never had your hair bleached before, well you just don’t know what you’re missing, lol! It’s not an easy process, especially if you have color in your hair like I did (a dark red brown, no less.) It took not one, but two go rounds with the bleach in order to get my hair even close to light enough to get the final product I was hoping for. And that was only achievable because I spent a good chunk of time under the heater which speeds up the bleaching process. It’s still took well over 2 hours just to get my hair bleached out even close to, though not quite as light as we would have liked.

So now for the color. This is always the scary part, in my experience. Because a lot of what the final product will look like depends on whether or not you had to bleach your hair, the level you got your hair to after being bleached, the texture of your hair itself, and whether the wind is blowing from the west or the east. We settle on the color. We think we’ll achieve what we’re looking for and off we go. Again, because I’m looking to have red put in, this is not a short process. It takes longer for the reds to come up and so I ended up staying with the dye on my hair for quite some time.

Despite all that effort – failboat. The color didn’t come out anywhere near the strawberry blonde we were aiming for. It was GOLD:

She took one look at it and was like “oh no, this will not do. We are going to need to go back in with another shade of dye to try and fix this.” So BACK into the dye I go for my FOURTH process of the day.

I am blessed with having very healthy, strong hair. Which is a damn good thing because all of that processing could have completely destroyed anyone else’s hair. But between the original condition of my hair, and the fact that they did deep conditioning treatments on it between each and every process, it came out in the end silky and smooth and healthy. Kind of a miracle. But all those conditioning treatments also meant even more time spent at the salon.

By the time we were moving on to the second dying process I was pretty much ready to go full-on cannibal in the salon. I was starving. I had been there for almost 5 hours at that point. FIVE HOURS. But there was no turning back now.

After five and a half hours we finally had the color we were looking for. Another half an hour for the haircut and blow out and I was finally done. It “only” took six hours, that’s right six hours, from start to finish. I got there at 9:00 a.m. and finished up around 3:00. 😳 When I went to check out the front desk lady was like “oh my god you’ve been here all day!” Yes ma’am, yes I have.

But in the end it all worked out and was worth it. I actually got, maybe for the first time I’ve ever gone into a salon, pretty close to exactly what I was looking for. And I love it. Hallelujah.

By the way, Happy Halloween y’all!