Posted by meli on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 in dread-tastic | 9 comments
I did it.Couldn't stand it any longer.
Pulled the trigger.
Took the hit.
And it was a disaster! Again! Will I ever learn?
Yea, I think not. :-P lol
I posted a photo blog entry last week about my dreads. About how much my hair had lightened since dreading it, and about how my roots were coming in with a vengenace. It was starting to bug me. Increasingly so.
I decided I would dye my hair dark brown, to better match my roots. If you remember from an earlier blog post, dread dying woes, this decision was not an easy one to make. I went back and forth for a while. Another earlier blog entry, dread-tastrophe... please pass the scissors, or not!, will make my trepidation more understandable.
But, even with THAT history, I still went ahead, took the plunge, and dyed it again.
It didn't turn dark brown. It turned black. JET BLACK!
and I only left the dye on for 1/2 the suggested time!
Oooh, I hated it! I think black hair looks gorgeous on some people. On me... it was just wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I thought I was handling it well. I hated it, yes, but I didn't feel any immediate need to fix it. Told myself that it will most likely lighten up in a few weeks. No big deal.
Yea, no big deal, until the next night when out of NOWHERE I just started bawling. Oh god. Dejuva!
I wanted to chop it all off. I couldn't stand it. I didn't want to look at it; I hated the way it looked. I didn't want to touch it; I hated the way it felt. I didn't even want to attempt trying to fix it. Knowing what I went through last time ... I figured I just continue making it worse.
More crying. More sobbing.
I told you... this is a lesson I don't think I'll ever be learning! lol.
(for the record... life has not been so great lately, as you could probably gather from the previous few entries. So, again, none of this was about my hair. The desire to fix it, the back and forth, the crying mess after. None of it. If I'm going to be projecting crap ... I'm glad the focus is my hair, instead of something more destructive)
I finally distracted myself enough that I no longer wanted to hack my hair completely off, not that night anyway, and I eventually fell asleep. Woke the next morning with a desire to go to the store to just look and see what they had. See what options were out there for possibly fixing the color. I was again feeling that I would just wait it out a couple of weeks and see how I felt then. Maybe it would lighten up by then. Maybe the black would grow on me, and I'd love it. I knew that I hated the blonde horror of last time much more then I hated the black... so that was something to go on, lol. But, I know myself better then that. I know that my mood could change instantly, and I'd be a sobbing mess with scissors in my hand again ... so I was going to look, needed options.
I found a chestnut highlight kit for dark brown/black hair. Stuck 3 of them in my cart, and walked around the store for an hour, contemplating. I knew if I bought them, I would use them, and I wasn't yet sure if I wanted to go down the "obsessive, must fix" road again. Trying to play out all the different outcomes. Figured I already hated it, might as well throw some more crap on it. Haa!
The suggested time to leave the mixture on was 20 minutes. I lasted about 5! LOL! I could see it getting lighter, and I reeeeally didn't want it to bleach to the point of being orange and splotchy. I freaked out and hopped in the shower. Rinsed. Threw the toner on to even it out a bit. Used a little conditioner (bad bad bad for dreads, I know, but I hated the way they felt. needed to do something). And it was done.
The outcome ...
Dark Brown!!!!!!!!!!
Yay!!! You can see little splotchy golden highlights here and there, which I love.
For once, my obsessive-compulsion to fix my hair actually worked for me instead of against me!
Black and Brown
What colors have you had? I have thought of coloring mine too.
ReplyDeleteHow old are your dreadies?
[...] some alone time today while we shopped for “disaster relief” you can read about that here, lol. We shopped. We talked. We ate grapes. Perfect afternoon with my little honey-honey taken with [...]
ReplyDeleteMy dreads are 5 1/2 months old. Still babes!
ReplyDeleteI've dyed them blonde before. Hated it. Tried to darken them to a light brown, but they turned out more strawberry blondish. Still hated them, lol. That was my first set of dreads, they were only a month or two old, and all of the dying and redying (and redying) destroyed them. I had to take them out and start over. Soo, I was really apprehensive about dying these babes.
How long have you had yours? What color were you thinking?
You're right the dark black/brown ones were too dark...don't match you as much as the gorgeous brown with golden undertones ; ) Mighty lovely my dear.
ReplyDeleteLove the brown with golden highlights! I'm hoping to get dreads in April and would like to add some highlights to my hair but I think I'll do it before dreading. I have virgin, never done anything to it, hair so I don't want anything to go wrong when they're all knotted up.
ReplyDeletehoping mine will look as lovely as yours:)
xo
Yay... another soon to be dread head! Love it.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely if you want highlights, do it before dreading. It'll look great! My suggestion would be to have your colorist make the highlighted chunks a little bit thicker then normal, so when dreaded, you'll really be able to see and appreciate them.
Can't wait to see some photos :-)
Dreads look cool, but they seem to be a lot of trouble. I don't think I've ever read why you wanted them in the first place. Is it a Rasta thing? (Live simply, vegetarian)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you've been feeling better, I've been praying for you all. Peace.
Awesome fix!!
ReplyDeleteI don't have dreads, but I can relate to instant hair-do remorse!! For me, it also comes in dyeing too dark, and cutting it. I grew my hair out so long, and last winter just chopped it off. I gave a cosmetology student a chance to just shorten it to my shoulders, and we wound up drastically shorter. Turns out, she hadn't studied curly hair. So, now, at times I mourn for my longer locks. I always tell myself the same thing I'm saying now: Never again. It will grow and grow, and I will never cut it this short again. We'll see...
[...] my better judgement… again. hated the outcome… again; lesson learned… again. dreamwithintention.com … blogged about [...]
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