That time I dyed my hair orange.

I am not a natural blonde.

I was when I was little, which is how I justify my current hair color, but let's be honest. My hair is brown. Boring, boring brown.

I started highlighting it a little over a year ago, so by last week, it was looking very blonde. Well, very blonde with very bad (and brown) roots.

Given that I am still unemployed and do not have the extra money to spend money on NYC salon highlights, I figured my mom and I would be able to highlight the roots so that I wouldn't have to pay for them. She was coming to stay with me anyway, she was willing to do some free labor in exchange for an air mattress on my floor.

We went to Duane Reade, bought the color and went to town. Well, I sat. Mom went to town. We really thought it would work too - the roots appeared much lighter when I looked in the mirror before I got in the shower to wash the dye out.

It didn't work. I got out of the shower, looked at myself in the mirror and called out for my mother like a 4-year old child with the flu.

Here's what happened:



The picture doesn't even do the color justice. Think Garfield, Syracuse or traffic cone orange.

I wanted to cry. But I have a hard time crying at real life situations, I'm more of a movie, commercial, when-other-people-cry-and-I-don't-know-how-to-react crier. So instead, involuntarily, I started to hyperventilate.

I tried to Google what to do when you've accidentally dyed your hair orange. The answer in most cases was go to a salon.

Well, awesome. This process wasn't going to save me any money at all, and now I had to physically get to a salon with bright orange roots.

Flora, my new colorist looked at my hair and said it was "full of discrepancies." Thank you Flora. When I sat in the chair and she got a closer look, she told me some people are capable of dying their hair at home, like her. But that I was not one of those people. My hair, in Flora's words, was a "mess."

She re-highlighted parts of it so that the root situation would blend more easily. Then she began the toning process.

Some guy came and sat next to me in the sink. He said my hair looked good. Either he was blind or didn't think it was acceptable to have a conversation that started and ended with "hi." Either way, I told him the story of my orange roots. He wished me luck on his way out.

Flora had to tone my hair twice before I stopped looking like Garfield.

It's still a little orange. But at least I can go outside now.