College is a time for experimentation. The “girl has a lesbian phase in college” stereotype (as disgusting as it is) arises from some form of truth. This handful of years in your late teens and early twenties gives you an unparalleled opportunity to challenge what you thought about yourself: your image, your behavior, your identity. Everything. I’m in my second semester of my sophomore year and I’ve taken full opportunity of this, fundamentally changing my wardrobe and even getting my first tattoo. However, I’ve had the most fun playing with one very obvious aspect of my appearance: my hair.
Let me take you back to before I started college:
It was the beginning of August, and I was just about ready to head off to Kenyon and start a whole new chapter of my life. Because of that, I decided that it was time to dye my hair for the first time. I wanted to start college with a bang and do something that I would never have had the guts to do while I attended my private, all-girls high school. So I made an appointment and had the underside of my hair bleached and then dyed purple. Here’s the back of my head circa August 2014:
I thought it was the coolest thing in the world to have purple hair. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to take care of dyed hair. I didn’t get shampoo for color treated hair and the color was gone within a few weeks, leaving me with a faded yellowish-pink patch. With the help of a few friends who were also experimenting with hair dyeing at the time, I maintained the purple for the whole first semester and I loved it. Sure, I probably did some long-term damage to my hair with all of the bleaching and cheap hair dyes, but it was fun and I thought I looked incredibly cool. Just look at this braid:
Pretty cool, no?
However, I came to the conclusion that the purple wasn’t for me anymore right at the beginning of the second semester last year. So at the suggestion of my friend, I dyed my hair red. It was my whole head this time and I suddenly realized that not only could you have fun with hair color, but it could look more or less professional as well. I still have the red hair, and recently my hair stylist from home told me that I was born to be a redhead.
For a full year I reveled in the redhead life, maintaining it myself for the most part with boxes of hair dye from CVS and Wal-Mart. Still, at the beginning of the fall semester I started to feel that now-familiar itch for something different. A few years ago my sister had cut all of her hair off for a short pixie cut which she rocked. A few of my friends started chopping their long hair off in favor of shorter styles. As fun as dying my hair was, I started to see that I wanted to do something very different. Inspired by the looks of Natalie Dormer and Kelly Clarkson, I opted for a long undercut.
In short: best decision ever. It was definitely a big step for me and it took a lot for me to actually do it (ask any of my friends—I was talking about getting it done since September and it took me months to build up the courage). But I can’t express how happy I am that I got it done.
All of this has happened over the course of a year and a half, and I still have a majority of my time in college ahead of me. Who knows what my hair will look like by graduation? It’s like I said, college is a time for experimentation and challenging yourself to try new things. We are likely never going to have the luxury of having this much free rein to do what we want with our appearance after college. Many of us will go into professional careers where wild hair colors and “alternative” cuts might not look too enticing.
If you’ve ever thought you might want to dye your hair blonde or shave your whole head, now is the time to give it a shot. Worst case, you find you don’t like whatever you do and grow it out. Best case, you discover a color or a style that you would never have had the guts to try before! Hair can be a powerful tool in expressing who you are, so why not take the opportunity to mess around with it? Trust me, it can be a great experience. I hope you have as much fun playing with your hair as I have had!
Image credits: Annie Devine