The curse of the chemo bangs

Last week, I gave my permed hair its first shampoo.  What do you know, that must be some potent chemicals that they put in because it turned out looking okay!

here are my geisha lips to celebrate my hair surviving its first shampoo.

Note to self:  Never wear that outfit because it makes me look like a middle-aged librarian.

Having curly hair is kind of a bitch, it’s slightly high maintenance, but my straight hair was as well.  The only difference is that I have to use special hair products to retain its volume and make sure it doesn’t dry and frizz (or risk the danger of it looking like an afro).  So I bought all these crazy fair trade hair products from Human Heart Nature.  I am a distributor by the way, I figured with the amount of shampoo and conditioner i’ll be buying, I might as well hawk it).  I interchange HHN products with they yellow L’Oreal shampoo just to confuse my hair a bit.  I’ll probably do a review on which HHN products I love to use (you know, just in case anyone there is interested in ordering from me!) but i’ll save it for a rainy day.

Unlike the red hair, I could shampoo my hair on a daily basis (I think!) as long as I don’t comb it all the way through.  Which I do anyway, because my curls are lose enough and snap back to its “dreadlocks” clump (my boyfriends’ words, not mine) after a while.  A bad hair day usually calls for a cute headband, since the curls fall the exact same way every day, I don’t really need to style it as much.

Day 3 of shampooing, my hair looked like this:

Friday! Friday!

Holding up pretty well, if I say so myself!  No facial shot (hahhaha) because I wasn’t feeling particularly presentable that day.  WHY you ask? Because the night before that, I did

this.

I DO NOT KNOW WHY.  My initial reason was because of the length.  Obviously, they didn’t curl my fringe.  But I noticed that my they were long enough to be the same length to where the curls started.  In my head that was wrong, and looked really tacky (HUH?) So I decided to cut it again. I tried to do all sorts of stuff to it just to make sure I don’t end up looking like I have chemo-bangs.

DIY HAIRCUT FAIL.

WHAT THE HELL!!! I made sure not to cut it wet, and not to cut it too short.  I made sure it was above my eyebrows.  But I think I went a little crazy with the cute comb-like scissors.  So I had really short layers as well as long hair.  I do not understand! I do not understand!  why do I think I will magically have the talent for hair-cutting?  Did I think third time’s a charm?  Because this is the 5th time I cut my hair and ended up looking like an idiot.  When.  Will.  I.  Ever.  Learn.

Monday Shame

So now I have to constantly wear a headband, and hairspray it to make sure the hair stays in place.  I tell myself occasionally “hair grows back” which gets old after the 4th time you’ve botched up your hair.

Today.

I am not happy with my hair, and I am not happy with my face.  I am not happy at all.

Oh well, at least I get to shop for hairbands.

Hair Affair.

I love my hair.  I used to have incredibly healthy and dark asian hair.  Salon guys used to fall over themselves (OA) and ask if I color my hair BLACK.  They used to stoke my hair and lovingly say “ate, ang ganda talaga ng hair mo!”  to which I reply “keri”.  My hair used to be black, shiny and soft, the way Asian hair is supposed to be.  I took pride in having Virgin hair.  Take note, VIRGIN.  2009, I had VIRGIN hair.  I was a 23 year old Virgin.  Nevermind which part of the body.  The mere fact I can claim a part of me to be legitimately Virginal at 23 is amusing enough.

OMG my virgin hair.

I was looking for a picture of a nice haircut to give as a peg to my stylist when I came across an article about hair and hair color. The article said you might as well get all your crazy hair antics out of the way before you’re too old to get away with it.  Age and maturity have always been an issue with me.  I stopped looking 16 when I turned 23, my little girl looks were starting to mature. So I started to panic and the next thing I know, my life started to flash before my eyes.

I know it’s just hair, but i’m a film major, I have to live my drama.

I decided to color my hair on Sept 19, 2009.  I know this because I have been using the receipt as a bookmark (which basically means I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s “Neither here nor there” for three years already).  Since that fateful day, I’ve colored my hair at least 20 or more times.  I’ve used box dyes, bubble dyes, even more box dyes and vegetable based dyes.

This year alone, i’ve lost count on how many times i’ve fiddled with my hair.  I had it colored around Christmas time, then had it colored again come Feb because I was getting bored.  I lightened my Feb color using bubble dye (I wanted to try it) that I got off the internet.

BUBBLES!

I found it too light, so I went ahead and poured Manic Panic in Vampire red to cover it up.  Slept with the gunk on my head, and woke up to this:

my sister and my red hair

Well, red, as you all know, is the hardest color to maintain, so after a while, it started to fade.  Every time I shower, my hair would bleed.  I stained so many white tshirts, and towels.  I also had to rinse my hair using cold water to lessen the fading.  The color lasted for about two weeks.  After three weeks, you can see it starting to fade.

excuse the expression.

So before it got all ugly, I decided to touch it up with another Bubble Hair Dye, but this time, I used Etude House’s brand.  The shade was Pink-something.  I don’t know.  Anyway it ended up looking like

this.

It was okay.  At this point, I’ve stopped relying on the color chart because of the sheer amount of colors that’s already in my hair.  The red from the Manic Panic faded quickly but left an indelible red tinge, as you can see.  Satisfied with my present BJ (Bubble Job), I decided to cut my own fringe.  Also, I was broke.

not a flattering picture at all.

I was contented with this hair for at least a month, I usually color every month anyway to avoid roots.  Do not ever do this because it will damage your hair like crazy.  So after a month or so with my  brown hair with pinkish shades, I lost my wallet.  There really is no connection with my wallet and my hair (unless I have to pay for a Salon color) but that meant I had to go to LTO to get a replacement drivers license.  While I was bored in the LTO, I took a picture of myself to post in my friends’ BBM group as gag.

GROSSEST HAIR COLOR AND FACE EVER

When I looked at the picture, I nearly shat my pants because 1, I looked like shit.  and 2, my hair color is ORANGE and fadey and just plain disgusting.  This is the color you should NEVER let your hair reach.  This is the i’m too lazy to color so i’ll just let my hair fade into this gross walis type of color.  This is the color that screams I AM TOO LAZY TO TAKE CARE OF MYSELF.  Which would be okay if  I were 40 had 10 mouths to feed.  But for a 25-year-old employed girl to sport this hair color, unless I work the streets at night, this hair color has no excuse.

So right after this picture was taken, I went straight to the drugstore and bought a box of L’Oreal’s Brown series.  Brown series means I forgot what color I bought.  So I gave myself a BJ (Box Job!) and thankfully, it turned out okay.  Okay meaning it darkened a bit and covered that ugly orange color.

WHEW.

I was happy with my hair after this.  I decided to just keep it until yearend, or at least color it back to black and just let all the damaged hair grow out.  That’s a pretty good plan.   While i’m on it, I should be on the lookout for good hair treatments to moisturize my hair.  So I monitored (ahem) the group buying sites closely, only to find out that AZTA is taking 50% off their digital perm service.  I thought about it for a while (like 5 seconds) and came up with these points

1.  “Might as well while i’m still young enough” quote

2.  Come January, it would have loosened, just in time for Klassy’s wedding.

3.  Azta is just a 5-min drive from our house

4.  It’s on sale

5.  OMG it’s ending in 12 hours.

6.  OMG OMG OMG A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE BUYING ALREADY!

7.  What the hell.  If I don’t like it, I can tie it up.

There you go, I basically just narrated my group buying philosophy.

Before I hit “buy!” I quickly called up the salon to make a booking for a weekend.  I didn’t want to take a leave from work just so I can use the damn coupon.  The only weened they had was Sept 4, Sunday.  I had myself pencilled in.  10am.

Then I clicked BUY.

It was 4 hours of pure boredom.  I didn’t wear contacts because I just woke up, so I was blind the whole time.  They could have colored my hair orange or shaved it off, and I wouldn’t even know.  I spent the whole time trying to finish my Bill Bryson book but only got up to Chapter 9 because I dozed off for a bit.  When I woke up, it was time to rinse.  When they were done, they put a bit of mousse in my hair, scrunched it up for some volume and I came out of the salon looking like this:

ni hao.

I was a little worried that the curls wouldn’t hold because yesterday, some of of my hair was falling a little flat.  The stylist also said that the tips of my hair would be the first ones to loose their curl because they’re the most “damaged” part of the hair.  I also know (from experience) that my hair is stubborn, and is known to refuse, as in REFUSE to hold curls and waves.  I can curl my hair using an iron, and 30 minutes later, it would be straight again.  (un)Fortunately that was during the Virgin days, due to the constant dicking around with my hair, I hoped that it would be easier shape and style.  You’re allowed to condition your hair 48 hours after the treatment (that’s 2 days) and this morning I was finally able to condition my hair!  I crossed my fingers and hoped my slutty hair could still handle it.

I guess it was just the mousse holding it down, because my hair seemed to have held on the curls pretty well.  It’s a little dry, because I put the product in while my hair was still wet, and not after.

SLUTTY HAIR CAN HANDLE IT!

I can’t wait until tomorrow! FINALLY I CAN SHAMPOO!!!!!