Hair Horror Tales

 Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hair stylist you like.  

Author Unknown

Good morning.  Hopefully today is the day this oppressive humidity takes its leave...at least for a few days.  Went for my blood work early yesterday morning, then came home to wait for the beauty parlor to open.  I wanted to get everything done as early as possible to avoid the worst of the heat.  Hubby was going to be at his doctor's appointment in the afternoon, and I didn't want to leave Miss Minga in a non-air-conditioned home.  Although she loves the heat, lies by the radiator most of the winter, this is a different heat.  I'm not sure how the humidity affects and older cat.  I know it can't be good.

Look what hubby brought home.  A dozen Haitian mangoes a guy was selling on the street.  My favorite. 

Guess what?  I walked to the beauty parlor without my cane.  I was determined to do it.  Of course, it was only down the block, but it's a start.  I also discovered a new Chinese herbal medication store that opened right down the block and went in to learn what's good for pain.  The woman understood the word 'pain' and handed me something, but I couldn't read it.  Some herbals raise the blood pressure or interfere with medications so I handed it back to her.  I won't take anything that I don't know what it is. 

As I sat in the chair with my 'stylist' working his wonders on my hair, I began thinking about past beauty parlor disasters and started to laugh.  Poor man thought I was laughing at something he did and apologized.  I assured him it had nothing to do with him.  I'm blessed to have found someone so good with his hands and at such a reasonable price...$14.  Here's a not too good selfie of my new cut.

Of course, my hair disasters were not funny at the time they happened.  My first came when I was 18 years old.  My mom was going to the beauty parlor to have her hair colored, and for some reason I tagged along.  I wasn't planning on having anything done, but when I got there I saw they had 'frostings' on sale.  Now, I really don't know when they first started doing frostings around the country, but in my small town it was a new and novel idea, and I just had to be one of the first.  After years of tagging along after everyone else, I was not only going to be 'first' at something, but I was also going to be a blonde without bleaching all my hair.

Big mistake.  About halfway through the beautician tells me that she has NEVER done a frosting before. It seemed like forever that she had been pulling strands of hair through those tiny holes, and by now I'm having the first and only migraine I have had in my life.  Finally it is time for bleach.  My head is pounding,and, when the time comes,  as she leans me back to rinse it out I have to excuse myself to make a mad dash to the bathroom to heave. That was the first of many.  I still had to endure the coloring part, but when she rinsed that out she put a few rollers in my hair and told me to bring them back tomorrow.  I went home and slept until the next morning.

That wasn't all, though.  My nightmare was to continue for almost a year because when I took the rollers out, my hair came out with them.  And what was left was orange, gold, red, brown, white, yellow, etc. and so brittle it would break off in your hands.  I had to wear wigs for a year. 

There were a few minor incidents through the years like the time I walked out of there looking like a boy or the time I was in my sister-in-laws wedding party,  and they cut my hair to go with the little hat I had to wear.  As a result, one side of my head had straight, unangled hair while the other side was cut in layers. But, aside from the frosting fiasco, my other worst experience was my one and only perm.

I wanted curly hair in the worst way, and when I saw how nice some of the new perms were looking, I wanted one.  Well, the perming went fairly easy compared to the frosting.  But, I should have realized that something was wrong when she unrolled a strand on top and said, "Oh, this is done already.  Your hair takes very quickly."  Then, she rolled it back up while she completed the back.  Another 15 minutes passed before she began unrolling everything.  After finally washing the solution from my hair, she put it in rollers and stuck me under the dryer.

"Oh my', I said to myself as I looked at the young woman in the mirror with a bouffant 'old lady' hairdo.  No offense intended.  I'm an old lady myself, but in those days that's what we called those heavily sprayed bouffant dos which were so popular with the older women.  "I'll have to go home and wash this out before I go to work in the afternoon.  Can't go in looking like this."

Well, to be honest, that would have been much better than the frizzy hair wild woman I become.  My hair looked very much like the wig above, only the woman wearing it looks good.  I didn't.  It was too late by then to do much with it so I threw a scarf on and went to work.  The next day I headed back to the salon. They told me that my hair was 'supposed' to have been conditioned and trimmed after the perm, but the woman hadn't done that.  They did their best to fix it, but this included chopping my hair up to my ears.  Broke my heart. To this day I feel it was more than a lack of conditioning.

And I never did anything about it.  I don't know why.  A bad haircut is one thing, but these people literally destroyed my hair.  Yet, I let them get away with it.  What a wimp I was back then!  They wouldn't get away with that today for sure.  

And let's not forget the crazy things I did to my own hair throughout the years.  I won't bore you with all of them, but I will tell you about the two funniest.  Anyone here remember Noreen Capsules? Well, this was a color rinse that came in capsule form.  You mixed them in water and poured them over your hair to add some temporary coloring to your hair.  My hair was a medium brown with red highlights so blonde did nothing for me.  I usually used the red to add highlights, but one time I used the black capsule.  My hair did look good...until the rain came down.  The black ran down my face.  My clothing was destroyed.  What a mess!!!

Speaking of Noreen capsules, there was a time that I was bleaching my dark hair.  (I've always favored blonde throughout my life.)  Well, it didn't bleach out enough for the platinum haircolor I had chosen.  Didn't want to put any darker permanent color on so I used an ash blonde Noreen Capsule to tone it down until I could work on it again.  Well, not only did my hair turn out gray, but the darn rinse would not come out.  I ended up coloring my hair slightly darker and starting all over again the next month.

Well, that's about it with my tales of hair woes.  Hope I didn't bore you too much.  I'd love to hear some of your hair nightmares.

Have a great day.