A few days ago I wrote a blog about persecution, war and ISIS. Now I want to talk about hair dye. Not a smooth transition I know, but bear with me.
My hair is naturally very dark brown and I want to have blonde bits put in it. The exact hairdressing term is ‘ombre’ (pronounced ombray, like Peter Aundrey). In an ideal world, I would have been born a natural flaxen beauty, with long swishy hair like this…
But alas, I was born with the fullest, blackest head of hair you can imagine. Far too full and black for a baby.

As I’ve grown older it’s tamed itself (with the help of gravity) and it’s a bit lighter than it used to be. However, I know I would look ridiculous if I dyed my hair completely blonde because I just don’t have the skin tone or eyebrows for it.
In fact, to illustrate the point, I’ve put my photo through a virtual hairstyling tool. The results are not disappointing.
But it’s not as good as this more caramelly shade…
I look like my name might be Fanny, and I might be a reborn Christian who likes to sing country and western.
No. Full blonde is not going to work. Instead, I’m going ombre. ‘Ombre’ is a fancy term for having your ends dyed a different colour to the top bits. It makes it look more natural and ‘sunkissed’, and it’s lower maintenance as you can just let it grow out naturally.
Ideally, I will leave the salon looking like this:
Apparently I have to have a hair ‘consultation’ first. This is not just between me and my hair. It involves a hairdresser inspecting my hair’s condition and dabbing me with dye to make sure it’s not going to make me bald and crusty. Then I have to wait 48 hours, then book another appointment.
Is it worth it?
It all sounds like quite a lot of hassle and the appointment I did make was cancelled so I’m sort of wondering if maybe I should just save my money and put it towards a trip away, or a drumkit, or something else to expand my mind.
In reality I’m not going to transform into the flaxen haired beauty of my dreams. I’m just going to be me with a couple of blonde bits.
Ah life. It’s so confusing.