The harsh reality of 12 vs 50

Last school holiday, I did this to my daughter’s hair. Colour is the thing right now, and ‘dip-dye’ is the look. I can totally relate: from the age of 14, when I first added a daily streak of Sun-In to my mousy hair so I could look like Bananarama (in my dreams), I have coloured my crowning glory. I gazed with envy at friends who could manage to achieve something with Toners and Shaders, but they never worked for me. The most I ever managed was a “I suppose it’s not toooo bad” from my parents when they saw that all the purple foam from my sachet of fade out Champagne Gold had had no effect whatseover on my locks.

To give her credit, my daughter had done all the research, found what she thought would be the perfect dye, and bookmarked the video tutorials to achieve the look. I said no, and completely ruined her life… My reckoning said that if the school she attends was prepared to issue a detention to boys whose hair is too short, the rules certainly weren’t going to overlook pink hair.

So we found hair chalks, and she settled for that (we used B Uniq temporary hair chalks). At the time there was a Harley Quinn fixation going on with her, so blue and pink got the vote, and we set to work.

Now I’ve never been great at hair creations, but I chose to regard this experiment as more of a colouring in exercise, something which I find quite therapeutic, and lo and behold, it worked! I coloured on fairly wet, newly washed hair, and really went to town dredging the chalks down each strip of hair. At first it looked quite clumpy, but as it dried we started to get this really well-blended colour.

Now, were this me I would be socially unable to wear such gorgeous colours. In addition, my well-past-middle-aged hair would require eleventy-billion volumising products to make it look like I have more than a wisp. I’ve told Maddie to make the most of having such lush hair, because by the time she’s my age it will have migrated from her scalp to her legs, bikini line, and chin. Seriously, mother nature is a total bitch sometimes.

Anyway, because she has youth on her side, we just left the finished hair chalks to dry naturally, before doing a loose fish tail plait with the top section (there are loads of YouTube videos of this if you don’t know how) and then using her curling tongs on the rest of her hair.

Et voilà! She went off to her party, while I settled for a night in with the epilator and browsed my orthotic shoe catalogue…

 

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