It was spring of 2013 when I vowed that I wouldn’t dye my hair for as long as I could, so it could grow, of course. Well, that didn’t end up happening. It was around mid-May when I broke that vow and dyed my hair, only this time I didn’t go to a salon to get it professionally done. This time I did it myself.
It was a sunny day; I was at Wal-Mart getting shampoo when I decided that I would dye my hair. I asked my dad, Corey, “hey dad, can I buy some hair dye?”
“Do you know how to use it?” was his reply.
“Of course!” I chirped
He shrugged his broad shoulders and reluctantly nodded yes. Happily, I placed my box of L’Oreal honey brown hair dye into our already overflowing cart. That day was a Saturday. My mother and sister were both out of the house at a soccer game, so what better time to dye my hair I thought.
Standing alone in my bathroom, I begain to prepare for the process of dying my hair. I had my worn out blue towel on the counter, my box of hair bye with all of the steps set out in numerical order, and the directions were off to the side. Eager to start, I grabbed step number one off of the counter and applied it through my hair evenly, repeating with steps two and three. After all of the steps were fully applied, I began my 30 minutes of waiting before I was able to rinse the dye out. In that agonizing 30 minutes, I decided to read the directions that I had carelessly ignored before. In reading those directions, I found out that I was supposed to combine steps two and three, which I didn’t do. At the time I thought nothing of the little mishap and just continued waiting and eventually rinsed the dye out. My hair color turned out amazing!
As that Saturday progressed, I stayed the night at my best friend Cortney’s house. She is the same age as I am, but her skin is fair, her eyes are blue, and her hair is a gorgeous blonde. Cortney, being as nice as she is, said that she loved my hair color, too! After spending that night eating cake and playing Monopoly, we woke up the next morning and went to church. About half way through the two hour sermon, I began to have this overwhelming urge to itch my neck and head. For about 20 minutes this urge went on. Eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore and my mother had to come pick me up and take me home early. After returning home, the remainder of my day went smoothly. It was spent relaxing and watching TV. Around 10:30 pm that Sunday night, I crawled into my big bed and slept better than I had in a long time.
At 6:30 am, my alarm for school went off, but this morning I felt different, odd in fact. I hurriedly got out of bed, took one look in the mirror, and was in complete shock. My whole face was swollen, almost to the point where my eyes were forced shut. Quickly I ran to my mom. When she looked at me I could tell she was trying her best not to laugh at my obviously chubby face. “What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied, “I think it was my hair dye.”
She really couldn’t help herself this time and she erupted in laughter. Eventually I did, too. I even joined in by teasing myself, saying “I look like Russell, the chubby kid from the movie UP.”
When I said, my mom fell on the floor laughing her butt off. Rolling around laughing and repeating, “Oh my God, you do!”
I guess that experience will never be forgotten, by me or my family. At least now, though, I know to read directions before beginning to dye my hair. If I forget once again I could just pack p and move to Hollywood, because I apparently have a promising career as a chubby child movie star.