If you also have a ‘typical’ Asian mom like I do, you probably know how it is when you want to dye your hair before heading off to university: there’s no way it’s going to happen. In fact, that pretty much explains why I went all wild trying new hair colours after coming to Canada for school by myself. I’d like to share my journey with you, about how I ruined my hair, trapped in frustration, and eventually decided to accept and move on.
After years of scrolling on social media, looking at pictures of dreamy hair colour I could never try and reading articles about how to dye your own hair, I finally got my chance to experiment with all kinds of hair colour on my own head. It didn’t take me long to make a decision that anyone with the most basic knowledge about hair would avoid: to bleach my already very-damaged hair to platinum blonde in a week on my own. At that point, my hair had already been bleached five times for the previous colours.
As pretty as it looked, blonde hair was truly a pain in the neck for me as it demanded a lot of extra care and special products. I had to be really careful about the frequency of using shampoo to avoid stripping my hair, which was extremely damaged from all the bleach. In addition to regular shampoo and conditioner, I needed sulphate-free shampoo and conditioner, purple shampoo, hair mask, and serum to make my blonde hair stay the look I desired. If I got lazy for a day or two, I would look like I was walking around with a bird’s nest on my head. I also had to use a flat iron every day because it was impossible for my crispy broken hair to be straight after sleeping. But the heat would damage the hair even more and thus a vicious cycle was created. The worst part was that my hair could strip literally anytime in a day, but especially during brushing and showering, which could cause so much unexpected stress to my day.
I didn’t keep my blonde hair nearly as long as I expected. After five months of struggles, I decided to hit the reset button and dyed it back to my original hair colour, crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t do anything stupid to my hair again until it’s healthy. I thought that was me ready for a fresh start, but unfortunately, I still couldn’t stop stressing out about the horrible texture of my hair. Every time I go out and see girls with long, straight, silky hair, it reminded me that my hair used to look like that until I messed up everything.
The frustration in my heart haunted me for weeks. Being unsatisfied with my hair made me feel not pretty and hurt my self-confidence really badly. Especially during the quarantine, when I had plenty of time self-destructively staring into the mirror and telling myself that I don’t look pretty — as ridiculous as it may sound, it really happened to me.
Even though I can’t say I’m in love with my hair now, I’ve decided to embrace it. It is one of the many things I don’t like about my appearance, which I can go on and on for days. But if I’ve learnt one thing in 2020, it is that everybody is going through some kind of change or struggle and to appreciate what I have. The more we celebrate the little sparks of joy in our lives, the less we care about the insignificant disappointments. Not to mention that hair is one of the handfuls of things in life that we can start over after messing it up.