Hair = A Salad. Naturally.

Yes, folks.  I said your hair is a salad.  Let me explain.

I know.  Sometimes I say wacky things, but the title isn't to make you want to eat your hair (oh, so gross.  Do you remember kids who would do that in elementary school?  They'd suck on their hair?  I'm GAGGING just thinking about it.).

No.

The correlation is simple.  Your hair wants you to put some dressing on it.  Same as your mesclun mix with some delicious paper thin radish slices and fenugreek sprouts...mmm..I want a carrot.  

Dressing?  Yes.  Of course.  Don't be silly.

Let me explain how I came to this astute conclusion.

As you may (unfortunately) know, last May I did a very crazy and unwise thing.  I attempted to get my hair blondified.  Why?  Because, duh.  Blonde hair is AWESOME, that's why.  I don't really think of it that way so much anymore.  I should have listened to my hippie self that went on spouting about chemicals and toxic death painted on my head, but I was so SAD!  Sad with that brown hair.

I used to get highlights and people described me as one who had blonde hair.  Then I swore off all that bad hair crap and let it all grow out until it was all brown and boring.  It did have a little bit of auburn in in, so it wasn't a flat color, but it was just so ...brown.  People would say to me, "Oh!  Your hair is so...dark!"  Yeah, tell me about it.

So in a fit of spontaneous will one night, I looked up organic hair color.  I determined that I would find a place that would do organic blonde on me.  This would solve my dilemma!  I would be able to have blonde hair without dreadful carcinogens and toxic death going into my scalp pores directly to my brains!  Perfect!

Yeah.  So I did it.  I went in with silky brown hair and came out looking like Ronald McDonald with a serious accent on the orange and afro style.  Except even HOTTER since when everything was failing, Mr. Hair Man decided to try to "save" it by adding in bleached highlights (so much for organic, eh?), so it would be more accurately described as an orange afro with yellow stripes.  Too bad it wasn't Halloween.  The whole tiger outfit was all ready to go.

After a little suggested that I shave my head and a little bit of hysteria, my friend saved my FREAKIN LIFE.  Now this whole thing is bad enough, but my dears, I had to go to a wedding two days hence from the whole horrid situation.  This is not a wedding I could have showed up wearing a cowboy hat, a baseball hat, a bandana or a head scarf.  I was either going to get the mop fixed or borrow my friend's wig.

Frantic ended when my sweet friend paid for me to look like a human again.  Maybe some of you are not as horridly vain as I am, but when I looked like a frizz clown, I just could not stand it.  It was shocking at every mirrored surface.  When I woke up in the morning and sat up in bed, I would look over at the mirror and jump back and my brain would say, "Who in the heck is THAT?!"  It was disturbing as it repeatedly went back to orange, no matter what I did.

All this to say, I got 6 (count them, 6) processes done on my hair in 24 hours.  (2 all over dyes, 1 highlight, 3 toners)  My hair was what you may call slightly unhappy.  A week or two later, I tried to dye it back brown.  It went back to orange.  I tried walnut husks.  It went back orange.  Coffee.  It did nothing.  Orange, orange, orange.  Finally, some hendigo worked.  Mostly.

Oh!  And I swim, as you know!  So let's add some chlorine to that pile.  (Do not tell me anything about chlorine.  I know.  But I ain't givin' it up.)  My hair looked and felt like plastic Barbie hair.  When it was wet it was dry.

I read that this was because my hair's cuticle (um, okay) was open and I likely had split ends.  So I read up on how to close your hair's cuticle (isn't that weird.  You hair's cuticle.  It's like nail time.).  The most common thing that I read (after reading the pH levels of hair, etc.) was that I ought to use apple cider vinegar.

Are you thinking what I thought?  Well, check.  Did you just say, "OH GROSS!"?  Cuz I did initially.  Actually, I thought, "Weird dirty hippies!

But as you can now understand, I am quite desperate and will pretty much try anything to fix this hair, and since it was in the cupboard, heck, why not.  I followed Crunchy Betty's  advice (boil 4 cups of water, add dried rosemary and some apple cider vinegar, cool down, dump on head - at least that's my version anyway).   

My darlings, this is a good thing.  Yes, you do smell like a bit of a vinegar head for a moment while it is wet, but it does go away.  It also brings your hair back to a good pH.  This means you don't look quite as much like a frizz head.  

Last week I added more drama to my hair by redoing the hendigo.  Now hendigo is total rock star, unless you have previously orange and bleached hair...in that case, your bleached stripes will just turn a nice awesome mud green.  I think it really sets off the orange stripes next to it nicely, though.  People say, "You don't have green hair!"  And then I show them.  Then they say, "Oh.  Well, um, I mean, uh, well, it will grow out."  

Awesome.

T-minus two years and counting.  

Have you been tempted lately to dye your hair?  Let me be a lesson to yas!  If, however, you want to give your hair a helper, give it some rosemary infused apple cider vinegar.  I also have infused olive oil and rosemary to tame it.  My twinge of green makes for a very lovely salad head anyway, so get that dressing going.  

Delish.  

Peace, love, and radishes do sound really good right now, 
Ms. Daisy

Get Rid of Orange Hair: My Shameful Journey

Sometimes, very rarely, I make mistakes (okay, okay, maybe a bit more oftener than that, but I was hoping you might not notice).  Sometimes these mistakes are apparent only to me and God.  Sometimes they are only apparent to my family or friends.  And then sometimes you make a mistake that upon making, everyone in the whole freakin' world notices any time they look at you or in your general direction.

This was me circa the end of May up until two days ago.

I thought it would be a really fanstastic idea to follow my dream of becoming blonde again.  Yes, the organic side of me was saying, "What the crap, yo?  You know better than that!  You know you can't use bleach and all those toxic chemicals, you'll kill yourself, your brains, your liver and you'll be soaking yourself in carcinogens like nobody's beeswax, homegirl!  Hello, ever heard of PPD?  Like, total death sentence, dumbface!!  DUH!!"  

The kind of hair I wanted.

The diva side of me didn't want to listen.  It wanted to find a way around the poison and solve it, being a non-toxic blonde.  I thought I had figured it out.  Oh glory, could it be that there was such a thing as organic color?  I looked it up online and after many hours of reading, there really was something called organic color. And it could make you blonde.  Is this for realies?  Oh baby.  I called the salon and made an appointment.  But first, I asked, "Can this really make me blonde? I have brown hair.  I don't want orange hair.  I don't want strawberry blonde hair.  I don't want golden blonde hair.  I want straight up ash blonde.  Can your product do this?"

I was then repeatedly assured it could and would.

I was so excited I could hardly stand it.

The day finally came and I took a picture of myself and sent it to the hubby with the caption something along the lines of "Sayonara brown hair! SUCKAAAA!!!!"  

It would be the last picture I remember having happy hair.

My visit to the salon was in an extremely upscale town about a half hour away.  These people use their Coach bags as gym bags because they're so common and refer to their Jimmy Choo as "these old things?!"  The people who live in this town have servants, nannies and Porches and Rolls Royce are as common as the F-150's (with the stickers of deer heads on the window and the "I work for Ford, I drive a Ford" plastic around the license plate) are in mine.  I thought I was safe.

I was el-wrongo.

I sat down in the chair and asked to see a hair color wheel.  I showed them the exact color I wanted and pointed out the colors I wanted to avoid like the plague.  I told them that when I used to get bleach highlights, my hair would take about an hour and a half to two hours to come up.  I have freak hair.  Is this going to work?  Are you sure?  Yes, yes, yes.  Do it all the time!

Okay.

This stuff you leave on your hair for 30 minutes and then rinse it out.

Rinse 1: hair slightly lighter, slightly more auburn, but still brown.

Did it again.

Rinse 2: resist swearing, sweating, stabbing and screaming.  My hair is flaming freak orange yellow.  Clown hair.  But fried to a freakin' crisp.  Dead.  Feels like straw.  By bending it sideways it breaks.  Thousands of split ends and shortened hair.  Oh. My. Gosh.  I am Ronald McDonald.  And I have to go to a wedding.  In 48 hours.  Use your tae kwon do for good, use tae kwon do for good, use tae kwon do for good.  It's just hair, right?  

His solution: bleach highlights to blonde up the orange.  He says, "Oh, you wanted  bleachy light blonde color?  Well, of course you cannot achieve that with this product.  That comes only about by bleach!"

Are. You. Freakin'. Kidding. Me.

She is cute, but this is not the color I wanted.  Unfortch, I got it.

So he pulls a 1980 vintage and pulls my long hair through a CAP with a crochet hook and bleaches it.

Thanks.

My hair was destroyed.  My childrenos suggested that I shave my head bald.

Along came my friend.  My sweet, sweet friend.  She rescued me from my desperation, took me to her salon and they toned the orange down significantly.  Then my sweet friend PAID for my fiasco-fix.  She has been with me through the worst times in my life, and she came through in true cape-like fashion.  She is a sister to me and I love her terribly.  God bless that blessing.

Fast forward two weeks.  My hair is getting oranger.  What the heck?!  The combination of swimming for several hours a week and the Trader Joe tea tree shampoo and conditioner are stripping the toner out of my hair with lightning speed.

I make pleas of desperation to make some cash and take it to another salon to have them dye my hair brown.  It works great.  For two weeks.  Then my hair is flaming orange again.

Hubby kaboshes the spending on the hair.  I am stuck.

Crap.

I try to dye my hair with coffee.  It doesn't work.

I try to dye my hair with black walnut hull powder.  It works.  Until I shampoo my head.  Then it is gone.  So much for those two hours.

I consider coloring on my hair with a brown Sharpie marker.

I spend hours looking up hair online.  I wear thick headbandy things to cover up the bulk of it around my face.  

I put Mrs. Stewart's bluing laundry brightner (the pre-bleach solution of 100 years ago to get your yellowed/dulling whites bright white again) into my shampoo and conditioner hoping to tone out the orange.  (I read about purple shampoo, but it was out because of all the chemicals it contained.)  Maybe my hair wasn't fluorescent orange anymore, but it was still orange.

Then I calculated how long it would take, based on the regrowth of hair from late May until now to have a full head of my (changed perception!) wonderful brown hair back again.  Oh.  Three years.

Sigh.

I am being punished for my foolishness.  And I must suffer my punishment for three years of horror every time I look at myself in the mirror.  Every time I meet a new person, they will think I am aiming to be a 17 year old prostitute who went wild in her bathroom with 50 developer and some bleach.  Why did I do it?  WHY?  WHY?!  WHYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

Pause.

Maybe you're asking me, "Hey Ms. Daisy, why the HECK didn't you just go to the store and go get a box dye?  Why didn't you go to Sally's and get something to dye your hair brown again?"  

You should know by now that I don't usually do the traditional things, my dear.  (No, that would be too easy.)

You do know I research those chemicals, right?  Steeping my head in carcinogen tea was not going to be my option.  My diva self was tempted to try it, I can assure you.  How easy it would have been!  I even had a box of dye in my hands at Target.  And then I did what I always do.  I flipped the box to the back and read the ingredients.  ARGH!!!!!!!!  WHY!  WHY!!  WHYYYYYYYYY!!!!

Knowledge.  Hmph.

Then it happened.  I found a product that contained 100% natural, organic stuff.  And it had a bunch of happy people who had used it.  They were using it to color their grey hair, though.  Would it work on my orange fiasco?  What if I ended up with green hair?  Maybe I'd like that better.  Huh.  Decisions to consider.

What the heck.  It was $11 online, so I ordered it.  I couldn't find it even in my uber-healthy health food store, so I had to wait for it to be shipped to me.  Patience, hurry up!

It contains natural indigo, henna (this is what freaked me out - visions of yet oranger hair kept me in a hyperventilation state of panic), amla and two other herbs to chillax your hair.

Well, what the heck, right?  I did a strand test and made it quite watery.  After 90 minutes it didn't work.  I called the company.  They said, "You did it too thin.  Think cake batter paste."

Good thing that was just a strand test.  The next day I got it all ready.  I sloshed my head with a greenish brown mud that smelled like baby food peas and put a cap on.  I prayed, "Please, God, let this not be a failure like all the rest and have my husband be so furious about spending even $22 (I got 2 boxes just in case) on another failure.  And please let me not have green hair.  Amen."

Yes, it took a little bit of work to get the mudpie out of my hair.  I had to climb into the bathtub, dunk my head into a basin and I let the faucet pour over the back of my head, dump the bucket of blackish sooty water, start over.  Repeat 5 times until clear.  Yes, my hair felt like it was made of sticks, but this was just the in-betweenies.  I put conditioner on it until I could rake my fingers through it again and then it was time for the test.  After spending 90 minutes with my mud hair and now having a sort of aura of baby food peas, I can tell you it was all TOTALLY WORTH IT.

What joy in a box looks like.

I washed and dried it.  Then I heard angels singing in bright sunshine streaming down into my bathroom mirror.  Glory hallelujah!  My brown hair was back.  My tending toward fro-chemically-burnt hair seems to be 90% repaired! And could it be?  Is it possible?  It was a normal brown color (oh wait, that's because it was from a natural source, um, duh)!  It was not orange.  It made me look like a human adult again.  It was not green.  Sayonara orange!  Thank you God!

The product is made by Aubrey Organics.  It is called "Color Me Natural" in dark brown.  It contains things that are all good for your hair: indigo (indigofera tinctoria), lawsonia inermis alba (henna), emblica officinalis, eclipta alba, acacia cathechu.  That's it.  It is 100% herbal.  My hubster said, "Your head smells like plants."  See?  Natural.  I got it here, at iherb.
 And I have a $10 off code if you want it - VNR736.

Yes, I have learned my lesson.  And in case you were wondering, no, I will not be hoping to have blonde hair ever again.  I will be happy with what the good Lord has given me.  

Peace, love and the natural way is ALWAYS the best way, even if it smells like peas,
Ms. Daisy

I have orange hair. Organic hair color FAIL.

Think of your worst nightmare.  Is it that you have orange hair?  No, no, no.  I didn't say red, nor did I say auburn.  I said orange.  See the color of the blogger thingy?  Yeah.  Orange.

Well, that might not be your worst nightmare, but it is mine, and NOW, it is MY REALITY.

Yes.  I am Ronald McDonald's sister.  I am Carrot Top's cousin.  Except they have the complexion to pull it off and I have three colors I can never wear.  They are: orange, yellow and brown.

I can't wear my head.

What did I do?

Yes.  Really.  What did I do!

Well, it all started because blonde hair is so awesome.  You know how I am obsessed with blonde hair.  I love blonde hair.  I used to have blonde hair!  Well, that is, until it turned brown.  I let it all grow out because I was soooooooooo freaked out about the chemicals.  And then I had sad sad brown hair.  That sad brown hair I would pay $250 to get back right now.

But for the last two years I decided I had to give up and forget about blonde hair.  I let it all grow out to its natural state.  It was a sad state of very medium brown-ness with some auburn highlights.  But it was not good enough.  Who wants brown hair when you can have BLONDE!

I changed my mind when I started reading about organic hair color.  I was avoiding it all because of the ammonia, the dyes and the chemicals.  But if there was really an organic color that worked, DUDE SIGN ME UP RIGHT NOW.

I looked for a salon that was around that carried it.  I found one about 30 miles away. I got a babysitter.  I researched it.  I specifically asked the owner, "This works for brown hair to change it to blonde, right?  No orange, right?  I don't want orange.  I don't want strawberry blonde.  I don't want Ronald McDonald.  I want ASH.  Can it do this?"

"Yes."  said the liar.

I made the appointment.  I skipped out of the house just imagining how I would come back in, blonde flowing locks behind me, just ready for summer.  What a great day this would be.

Well, except for the dog barfing a pile of grass on the carpet.

I told lots of friends, "Next week I will be blonde!"

I texted a picture of myself to the hubby saying something along the lines of sayonara, brown hair!!!!!!

I went in to the salon.  The owner was going to personally do my hair.  Should be great.  Color blobbed on.  Under the dryer 30 minutes.

Ding!

Wash.  I say, "I'm really surprised.  Usually my hair takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes and that's with bleach, so this stuff must be really amazing."

Rinse.  Dry.  Hair is half of a shade lighter than its current self.  It is brown.

Um.  ?  Dude?  Please make my hair blonde.

Applies another color layer.  Sloshes it all over my head.  Wait 30 minutes under the dryer.  Ding!

Rinse.  Dry.  I HAVE ORANGE HAIR.

"Dude.  I am panicking.  Do SOMETHING.  I said NO ORANGE."

The dude says, "Oooh!  You want blonde!!!!!!  Oh!  You need bleach then!"

Me: "No.  You said your product would work.  I am Ronald McDonald right now.  Fix it.  I can't do this."

Dude puts bleach highlights on my orange hair.

Sooooo much better!  I now have orange and yellow hair!  WOW!  SO GOOD.  I HAVE STRIPES!  Thank goodness.  This is so much better.  False.

Tomorrow I'm getting brown hair again.

Moral of the story: Live with your horrifyingly stupid brown hair.  It may be totally ugly and boring, but at least you don't look like a GMO clown.

Peace, love and the helpful little told me to shave my head,
Ms. Daisy