As a young teenager, I would spend most of my time on the Internet, whether it was on YouTube, Tumblr and other websites. It wasn’t hard to find someone online that had their hair dyed, especially on Tumblr. I was always attracted to how different it was and how unique it could be. You can easily look up “pastel pink hair” and over 1,000 results will show up and to me, none of them are the same. They all have different styles, shades, lengths; personalities. They all speak out in their own beautiful and expressive ways. I wanted to be one those people I would always see with hair that spoke for them.

I never dyed my hair until high school, because I was too afraid and shy. I was afraid of others opinions, questions, comments and the overall outcome. “What are they going to think?” and “What if they ask me why I dyed my hair?” were some of the most feared questions that ran through my mind. Even though, for me, the scariest part was the outcome and what I would think. There was no telling what my hair would look like when it was dyed, or even what I would look like with colored hair on my head. Considering it was not exactly “normal” back then and you can’t just start over if you don’t like it. So I had to take that leap with an open mind, and a shirt I was never going to wear again because of the hair dye, of course.

One summer day in 2014, June to be exact, I dyed my hair a “Petal Pink” with “Periwinkle” ends from Lunar Tides Hair. Which, by the way, I highly recommend for first time hair-dyers. The pink blasted out the periwinkle in normal room lighting, but it was there nonetheless! That’s when it all started, diving into hair color, after hair color. This was one of those times where I had two roads to walk down and I had to choose one. I had about 10 though because there were so many colors to choose from and mix & match. I wanted them all, honestly. Maybe not all of them, because yellow would not look good on me, let’s be honest. So, I just stuck with the basics such as pastel pink, magenta, aqua, purple, blue and all the faded colors in between.

Taking that one step out of the box has helped me tremendously. It has made me less shy, outgoing almost and an even more confident person. It has made me comfortable with who I am, and I am no longer intimidated by the stares that people give me for having my hair this way. I, in polite terms, give no cares about what others may think about me. That used to be all that was on my mind, as I mentioned before. It was always “What are they going to think?” but that changed to “What am I going to do next?”. Because that is more important in life, what you are going to do next, and what you, specifically, think about that next move.

Do not let others dictate your life based on what they might think about you. If they are real friends, or anyone in this case, they will not judge you based on what you look like. They may help you with an outfit you want to pull off, or how to style that specific hairstyle you want; but that should be the most that they do. Because you are your own person. You are you, and that is all you need to be and nothing more. After all, Oscar Wilde once said “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”