As I sit in my friend’s room in Adelphi Commons, she haphazardly spreads the gunky dye through each individual strand of hair. Earlier today in line at Starbucks and as we stood in Ulta glancing over the different brands and hues, all she would say was how entirely excited she was for what she was about to do.
What is it about dying hair that makes a person feel so animated, so new? As if you could walk into the party later that night like you are somehow a woman with a completely different identity and reputation than the one who customarily walks into that same house every Friday night. You think people may say “Oh, that girl must be going crazy. She’s wild,” but those hypothetical accusations that you create in your head only add to the thrill. You simply could not care less what other people will think.
For some unknown reason, we find comfort by linking life experiences to our appearance. A select few can appreciate the essence of a makeover as part and parcel to documenting a milestone in life, as celebration of a specific achievement or as recognition of the end of a period of trials. Similarly to getting tattoos as a way to commemorate life events, we change our appearance to commemorate events, to tie an event in life to an aspect of appearance on our bodies that every morning we recognize from the moment we gaze into the mirror and wipe the sleep from our eyes.
Perhaps the most common reason is that we prefer to forget aspects of our past. With an action as simple as placing box dye—that can be purchased at any local drug store—in our hair for half an hour, we can become a person who defies that past. This new girl is the girl you always wanted to be, but somehow always encountered some metaphysical barrier to your ascension to be her. Was it that terrible ex that held you back, that made you feel like you were less than? Was it the cumbersome awkwardness you embodied so well in high school but wanted to ditch for college? We are reinvented individuals from the moment the dye sets.
There is something to be said for the positivity that comes from change, from something new. Yes, it’s over-used and cliché to say “it’s a blank slate,” but that does not make it any less true. With a blank slate comes potential, potential to become the person you want to be, the you who doesn’t let events of the past hold you back from anything less than fulfilling your potential 100 percent.
The beauty of that little bottle of $12 hair dye is that with it, past events—maybe regrets, mistakes or things that happened to you simply due to the inexorable and unexplainable existence of tragic and unfortunate events in the world—don’t have to define you. You’re not the same girl who made those same mistakes, to whom those terrible things happened.
As you spread the dye and massage it in, it hits you, you’re in control of your destiny now, with many more changes to come.
