Do blondes really have more fun?

So I've been thinking of dyeing my hair for a long time. I've tried all the various lengths of hair in the past, from well past shoulder length, down to the shortest buzz cut. So color seemed like a natural avenue to explore next. But I lamed out. And continued to lame out.

But this year, I was debating what to do for a Halloween costume. And I was stumped. Then I looked at my labcoat at work, labelled DUUUUUUDE. And inspiration struck. I should be some sort of California beach bum scientist (possibly some relation to Val Kilmer's character in Real Genius). Take the labcoat, a Hawaiian shirt underneath, swim trunks and sandals. I borrowed a pair of mirrored safety goggles ($3 from VWR!). And then I thought to myself that I really needed to be blonde to complete the costume. A trip to Long's Drug Store, some help from a friend, and ta-da!

It's wacky. It's so easy. Less than 2 hours, most of which was spent sitting around watching TV. I feel as if it should be much, much harder than this.

The dye-ing process

First application

Missed a couple spots...

Second application

Ooh, that works!

The costume

Purple

So, as long as I had gotten around to bleaching it, I figured it would be a good excuse to actually dye my hair, which is something I had been wanting to try for a while anyway. And, given my background, purple seemed like the obvious choice.

The first attempt (11/3/02, to left) came out okay. Not as bright as I was hoping, but I think that's what happens when you use leftover year-old hair dye from somebody else. The picture also didn't have very good light, so it looks mostly gray, but it looks better under brighter light. I may try re-dye-ing later this week after I pick up some fresh dye. We'll see.

After only a couple days, the dye had faded so badly that it looked like I was either prematurely gray, or had a bad case of mange. I didn't get a chance to run to the store, but I did have some of that dye still left over, so I tried re-dyeing, and it came out a little better this time (11/7/02, below). I read on the internet that dye only works on damaged hair, so I think maybe my hair was more damaged the second time or something. It's still not quite as dark and shiny as I was hoping, but I think I need to get some serious dye for that, and I haven't gotten around to it.

Auburn?

(11/11/02) So, because the purple was again fading fast, and I didn't go out and buy the Special Effects brand hair dye that people recommended to get really shiny wacky-colored hair, I felt I had to do something. So I decided to try becoming a redhead. Main advantage: they had dye for that at the local Long's Drugs store. I picked a dark auburn. Thirty minutes later, it looked good, but after rinsing it out, it turned out to be much lighter than I thought it would be. Eit. It still looks better than the piebald purple-gray mange I had going earlier today, though.

Eric Nehrlich's WWW home page / nehrlich@alum.mit.edu