It’s actually a pretty funny story (and a somewhat long one, but bear with me). Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy dying my hair different colors—red, blue, green and the like. Basically colors you’d see on a rainbow. So I had green hair before and I was really intent on trying silver hair for the spring and summer, especially because I thought it would go great with my newfound obsession with brown lipstick.

Enter my trip to the hair salon. I was told that it would be hard for me to go from green hair to silver hair, but it was doable. So that first day my hair went from green to a really pale, greenish mint. Of course, there’s only so much chemical processing your hair can withstand in one day, so I was instructed to return in a few weeks to finish up the process.

Fast forward a few weeks when I returned to the salon to finally have the mysteriously enchanting silver hair of my dreams. The colorist was able to completely remove every centimeter of green hair on my head. Let me rephrase that: she was able to strip the hair of the green pigment completely (she didn’t cut my hair off!). So my hair was blonde. Really blonde. But I expected as much because, as countless YouTube videos have taught me, you need to have obtained really pale blonde hair before you can tone it to silver. So far so good.

So after enduring some sort of substance that should have turned my hair silver, my hair was washed and blown out, except it wasn’t silver…it stayed blonde! Very blonde, to my horror. Now, I think all hair colors are pretty, but I didn’t think that I could pull off blonde hair well at all. After pleading with my mom to let me dump a bottle of pink hair dye over my head straight away (to no avail) I shuddered at the thought of what people at school would think of my hair. Would they think that I was just a ‘wannabe’? Would people shake their heads in disgust because the paleness of my hair didn’t fare well with my tan skin tone?

I was literally planning to wear my brother’s baseball cap all day everyday around campus for the next couple of weeks, but there was one problem with that plan: it was stupid as hell. After laughing about my experience with my roommate, I decided that I should embrace my new blonde ‘do, not work to hide it, and certainly no longer worry about what people would think about the change. I decided to stop dwelling on the thought that I couldn’t wear blonde hair because it was happening; I had blonde hair and I will have blonde hair for the time being. Even though it wasn’t my original intention, I had to make the best of it.

First off, all my friends really liked the new look. I was even told that I was, “a goddess who can pull off any hair color. But in any case, I realized that for the first few days whenever someone I knew commented on my hair, I had found myself taking the time to explain why my hair was blonde—something I actually hated doing. Sure, it’s a funny story, but I realized I was telling it because I didn’t want my friends to think that I did it on purpose.

But if I had done it on purpose would people not compliment it anymore? Would they suddenly hate it? Would I suddenly be less of who I am? No. So I silently vowed to never explain my blonde hair after another comment. "Thank you" and move on.

I also realized how unavoidably egotistical we, as humans, can be sometimes, even if we never picture ourselves as self-absorbed. Believe me, I’m one of the least self-absorbed people I know, but I still thought that everyone who walked past me through campus would notice the change. Moment of truth: it’s not that important. Also, there are 20,000 people on my campus, 19,000 of whom I probably have never seen in my entire life and have never seen me in their entire lives, so to them I’m just another girl hurriedly walking to class.

I found myself playing with my hair more and adding cute headbands and flower crowns to it, and pretty much trying out hairstyles I wouldn’t usually try out.

Turns out, I actually started caring less about what people thought about me, and I started having more fun with my appearance. Besides, that’s why I dye my hair in the first place: I like having fun with how I look.

So my advice to anyone who wants to go for a new hair color—be it blonde, brunette, black, purple, whatever—is to not fret over what anyone else will think. Anyone can wear any hair color they choose. Blonde hair isn’t something that only light-skinned people can wear, likewise, black hair isn’t something that only dark-skinned people can wear.