I'm a natural red-head, which makes me almost a unicorn when it comes to natural hair colors. I've never liked it though. Growing up I was never comfortable with my hair color. I always thought that the color was too light or that it was too inconvenient. I could never find makeup looks or color that complimented my hair color so, I decided to dye it. It started with a small rinse while I was in high school. I continued to stick with red color for the sake of my mom, but the moment I turned 18 I knew I wanted to go for a much darker shade of red.
I walked into the hair salon with light red hair, and by complete accident, I walked out with a beautiful burgundy hair color. I was extremely skeptical about the change at first, but as time went on the color started to grow on me.
A couple years and many variations of red hair later, I decided that I wanted to go for a bolder hair color. So, I called my stylist and made the brave decision to dye my hair purple. I made the appointment two days after my sister's wedding and didn't tell a single member of my family about my decision until the bleach went into my hair. At that point, nobody could stop me.
I couldn't stop looking in the mirror when it was finished, and for the first time, I had actually liked my hair color. I had kept the color for the duration of the summer before I made the dreaded decision to go back to my natural color for a new job offer. I hated it, instead of being the confident person I was over the summer, I immediately began to shrink back into my insecurities.
The moment I left that job, I dyed my hair again. This time I only dyed the tips of my hair. The pop of teal in my hair made me look like a mermaid. And I had kept that color for a couple months before I decided to change my hair color one last time. This time, instead of doing an outrageous hair color like the ones before, I decided to go more natural. I didn't go back to my natural hair color, but I did dye my hair chocolate brown.
I went through the same process I did when I dyed my hair purple. I didn't tell anyone what I was doing until the dye went on my head. I was extremely anxious to find out what the finished product looked like. I had dyed my hair purple and blue and that didn't seem to scare me, yet the moment I dye my hair a normal color my nerves begin to act up. The moment I looked in the mirror I almost became emotional. It was almost like something inside of me had finally clicked and I was finally seeing myself the way that I had always wanted to. For the first time ever, I wasn't insecure about my hair. I felt like I could walk down the street and not care what a single person thought of me because their opinions didn't matter. As long as I liked and felt confident in my hair, then nobody else's opinion mattered.
