Hair
6 December 2003, 10:02 PM

I went and treated myself to the salon today. I've been wanting to dry my hair straight for a while, but it's such a lot of work to do that I never got around to it. It's much easier to just wash my hair and let it air dry curly.

I'd just let it be curly if it wasn't for the fact that it only stays truly curly for one day. After that it's simply frizzy and a pain to pull a comb through. If I want to keep it pretty and curly I have to wash my hair every single day, and for curly hair that means it'll get dry and brittle. It's a catch-22. Of course I don't do that, so my hair stays healthy, but it's also such a nuisance that I simply pull it back into a frizzy ponytail.

So every once in a while I'll just smear in some straightening balm and blow dry and iron it straight. The benefit is super-soft, silky, SHINY, straight hair that doesn't have to be washed for a much longer time. (In fact it looks better as days go by.) Then I can can wash it, let it air dry and go curly for a day. (Usually prompting people to ask me if I had my hair done. Nope. This is how it is naturally.)

The other day I looked in the mirror and saw quite a MASS of gray hairs sticking out near the top. Now, I've been getting the odd gray hair here or there for the past ten years, but generally they stay hidden under the curls and only show up when I straighten. Now though, they've started to advance on my head (I even have "tabby hairs" that are half gray, half black) and it's much more visible.

I don't mind the gray, and if I'd gotten a nice streak I would have left it alone. But a peppering of gray hairs in a head-full of dull, frizzy hair just looked so ... sad ... and old, that I decided it was time for some action.

So I went to the salon for the works. I got my hair colored (same as my natural color, only perhaps a touch darker and brighter) to cover the gray, had all the split ends trimmed off and got it blow dried straight.

It looks absolutely fabulous! It's glossy and shiny and brightens my whole face. It'll probably look even better now when it's curly. I should have done this sooner.