I have reached an inevitable point in my beauty regime. Forgive me for discussing such trivial things but I promise I'll get to the point I'm trying to make soon. You see, every month or so I dye my hair from jet black to various shades of red or purple... Why I hear you ask would someone with rich dark black hair ever want to dye it? Most people attempt to dye their hair my natural colour and more often than not look like Goths. All well and good if you are actually are a Goth, but most people just look washed out. That said, my natural hair colour suits me. Olive complexion and thick eyebrows. Black just works. But its bloody boring and after 20 years or so I wanted a change. I like being a redhead. It suits me too if you can overlook the fact that my eyebrows are black, but hey. Its slowly turning into a trademark of mine. Trouble is my roots have grown out a fair deal now and I'm thinking, maybe I should just leave it. In honour of Ms Winehouse, I do miss her dearly, perhaps I too should go Back to Black. It seems like nothing but its a big decision. My hair is very long and I'm frightened of damaging it. And it took a great deal of time to lighten my hair enough for the red dye to actually show up. If I do go back to black and then change my mind, it'll take forever to get it back to red – and no one ever wrote a song called 'Back to Red'. However, and this brings me to my real dilemma, a few seconds too long in front of the mirror last week and I discovered that my major hair decision may have been made for me.When I was growing up my parents ran a green grocers and all too often after primary school I would spend the afternoon behind the counter with my mother. Starting to reach an age when the true fear of growing old kicks in, my mum would regularly ask me to check her hair for signs of grey. The coast was always clear until one fateful Friday afternoon. I didn't know whether to tell her or not, but I think the laughing gave it away. She screamed. In a hysterical panic she ran to the mirror. Frantically she ran her hands through her hair looking for it, desperate to see the horrible truth for herself. “Pull it out, pull it out!!” She screamed. “But Mum, you're not supposed to. Won't ten grow back in its place?” I replied, feeling helpless in the kind of way only a naïve child can. My heart sunk that day. My mother's reaction had frightened me somewhat. It was only when I got older that I realised how much the whole event had been over dramatised. But I remember how it made me feel at the time. And I swore from that day that I wouldn't be like my parents. I would grow old gracefully. I wouldn't panic about these things. I would accept old age as a fact of life and relish in greater experience.
But what the hell did I know? I was nine. I hadn't even had a chance to be young yet. As a teenager you feel invincible... I could walk for miles upon miles, stay up all night and drink heavily without dire consequences. But times change and even now in my twenties, I can't drink as much as I once did, I can't seem to keep off the weight like I used to and every time I lift up something too heavy I ache for days. Barely in my prime and my body is getting ready to start decomposing. I am past my peak and worst of all, my hair follicles seem to have caught on. Last week, I found myself, just like my mother standing in front of the mirror desperately trying to find the grey hair I had caught a glimpse of while brushing my teeth. At first I couldn't believe it. I thought it might have just been a strand of hair shining in the light from the window. Just my eyes playing tricks on me. It couldn't possibly... But no, there it was, almost white against my jet black roots. I even contemplated the idea of pulling it out – but I was afraid of confronting it with my own eyes. My mum was 37 when I discovered her first grey hair. I'm 24 years old... Educated, unemployed and still a redhead, no longer by choice.
