When I was born, the nurses nicknamed me “Angel Baby” because my hair was so white, it was almost transparent. I was born with natural platinum to golden blonde hair, but it was also incredibly thick. It took at least an hour to comb out the tangles when my hair was long. This is because I’m Welsh, Native American, Austrian, and French Canadian, so I have the weirdest hair combination anyone could think of. I had bangs until I was sixteen, and every time I thought my hair was too long, I’d just cut it into a bob and trim my bangs.
I never colored my hair, because every hair stylist I saw told me they wouldn’t dye my hair, since most women who dye their hair blonde would kill for my hair color. I listened to them, but deep down inside, I knew I wasn’t a blonde.
I never planned on dying my hair until my senior year of high school, when I was in our musical. They made my costume the wrong color, and the top of it matched my hair so well that you couldn’t tell where my hair stopped and the top started. The hair and makeup crew made me dye my hair chocolate blonde, and I honestly cried. I didn’t want to ruin my beautiful hair that made most women envious. After I did it, everyone I encountered told me I was better with dark hair, but I didn’t listen. I tried to dye it back a month later, but it didn’t really work.
Fast forward about six months later, I landed a job as a summer day camp counselor/pool assistant at a private preschool in Vermont. Because of this, I chopped my medium-long hair down to a shoulder-length bob, because the pool chemicals were gonna wreck my long hair anyway. I also get mildly annoyed, which only comes out when I’m trying to put my hair in a headband or ponytail. If my hair has bumps in it, I’ll usually start crying and try to frantically fix it, because I can’t stand the bumps. The other perk to this job was that I was in the sun for six to eight hours a day, which sun-bleached it back to its original color. I was ecstatic.
College rolled around, and as an eager freshman at a public liberal arts college in Massachusetts, I was a little culture shocked. Not only were there no cows or farms within a ten mile radius, but everyone had fun hair that fit their personality…except for me. I was an angsty, beauty guru with blonde hair and no makeup on. That’s when I knew it was time for a change. Over winter break, I went to my family’s hair stylist, and I dyed my sunshiny hair into a deep burgundy. I had never loved my hair more that in that moment. It really fit my personality and it matched my skin tone, so I was in love.
So I dyed my hair, which made me happy, but I felt like something was still missing. My thick, bumpy hair was still causing me problems, and I was finally so fed up with it, I talked to some of my best friends in the world. They suggested I get an undercut, which is when you shave the bottom half of your hair and leave the rest on top as it is. I had always thought about shaving one part of my hair off, and I always joked that one day I was gonna shave my head. I went to Ulta about a week later and met Eileen, and she’s one of the only people I’ll trust with my hair now. She did a consultation with me, and did the absolute best job that she could do with buzzing my head. Although it was nerve-wracking at first, I fell in love the minute she was done. That part of me that always hated my hair had made a complete 180 and was madly in love with it now.
The moral of this story is that you don’t need to be afraid with adventuring with your hair. If you try something and don’t like it, be patient, because it will grow out and you can try something different. College is the time to be adventurous with your style, because everyone is pretty open and once you get a grown up job, chances are you won’t be able to. Be adventurous with your hair and style, because you’ll never know what you love until you try it.