Nice And Easy

As I sit here with Phase One of my hair color (Nice and Easy #118) on my hair, I contemplate my grays. I always knew I would have to face gray hair, it runs in my family and it runs early. My first grays sprouted when I was 19 years old and still in college. At that point, I didn't even use the temporary hair color in my hair as I have always had a fear of roots. I would just pluck them out as they sprouted ignoring that old theory that plucking one made two grow.

After college, I played around with some washout colors for fun, but not for grays, they just weren't an issue yet. I could still pluck the few that were there. We moved a few thousand times and I got a bit older. I started to feel like I was plucking an awful lot of hair and wondered if I wasn't going to end up with a spot that was thin if I kept it up. I decided to start coloring with the intent to cover grays. I stepped it up to the 12-25 shampoo version (or Level 2 to those in the know).

That was nice, I got the coverage I wanted, I could still play with the colors and I didn't have much of a root factor (although there was some due to the washout factor). That would have been my only complaint...the color seemed to fade and so each time that I would color again, I would get the dreaded "did you just color your hair?" question from people that saw me infrequently. I hate that question, but had to admit that being asked it meant that I was using a color that just didn't look real or looked different enough from the washed out version to be noticeable. Over time, I also started to realize that the "rinse" version of hair color was just not covering the grays as well...they kind of looked like highlights.

So while we lived in Japan, I was reduced to moving up to permanent hair color (Level III). I had to get over my fear of roots to obtain color that looked more real, didn't fade and covered up those pesky grays completely. Thing with living on an island, was that I was in the sun and water an awful lot, but it seemed that the color held up pretty well. I was pleased as much as can be with the results (obviously better results would be some kind of permanent color infusion so the grays would never come back). I stopped getting the dreaded question because the color wasn't fading between and I was careful to color again before roots could get too visible.

Fast forward to the present. My timer has 8 more minutes on it before I have to put color in the rest of my hair. I sit here at the computer with my hair parted in quadrants that are pinned up on four sides of my head. The roots and edge of my hairline are carefully covered in brown muck, and it just starting to get to that drippy itchy part that always happens. I want to scratch but I don't have the gloves on and no towel in sight. I went as long as I could this time before coloring. I am always surprised when I see my roots start to grow and realize just how much gray is up there now. The commercials that go on and on about how great their hair color is because it doesn't fade between colorings really get on my nerves because fading is not my problem. Having hair that grows so fast is...wish I could slow that down some. Fortunately for me, even with a 1/2 inch of roots in 4 weeks, I can still get by with pulling my hair back to hide them. I don't have any grays in the front of my hairline (yet) and when they do start there, I am not sure what I will do.

Well, timer is going off, need to get this done so I can check one more block off on my To Do list and feel a bit better for a few more weeks. Then it will be time to fight off the process of growing older and live in my little fantasy land once again. Until then, I will be young tonight and I guess that makes it worth it.