telophase | (no subject)

Toby and I went out to lunch today, and afterward, as we headed over to the cashier to pay, we walked by this elderly couple, the woman pushing the man in his wheelchair. As we passed, the woman looked at me and gave me the sourest look ever. I just gave her the sunniest smile I could and went on my way.

It wasn't until I got back to work that I realized she must been offended by my hair.

I got my hair done did yesterday. It looks darker in real life--the phone overexposes it a tad, and I can't adjust it well enough in Photoshop to approximate it, so you'll just have to imagine what it looks like in real life. The hair-colored parts are a dark chocolate brown near my scalp and black near the ends.

It's a kind of trendy look right now, if you go by Pinterest. Just search for "oil slick hair" there and you'll see a billion variants. However, I have yet to see someone in real life with this sort of hair (I do work at a slightly more conservative than the norm university), and years back I asked my stylist to color my hair like a blackbird's wing, and he did something similar, so I will just claim to have been ahead of the curve and therefore am now going retro.

Ironically, of course.

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Your hair is so pretty!

Thank you! :)

Your hair looks awesome!

Thank yoU!

WOW! That is fantastic. I'm going to look and see if anyone near me does it. Do you need to get it bleached first? How long did it take to do it?

About 3 hours total. It's a two-step process: you bleach the strands that need to be colored first, then rinse them out, then color the whole thing.

The blues and greens will fade first, and reasonably quickly, but given that I only wash my hair every 4-5 days, it'll stay longer with me.

And thank you! :)

I have left a message at an LA hair salon inquiring about oil slick hair.

Awesome! Post photos when you're done! :D

I will!

I *like* that effect! And it really suits you. :-)

Woman just didn't know what she was talking about.

Thank you!

My brain wants to claim she had that obviously artificially orange hair that older ladies who want to pretend they're still redheads have, but I think I'm mixing that up with her sweater and she had white or silver hair. But it would be nice to think that! XD

The hair looks fantastic!

(I keep being tempted, but I do actually sometimes have to be Very Professional with people at work on very short notice.)

Thank you! :D

When I was feeling out this job, years back, I went with a style that allowed me to part it on one side and reveal colored streaks, but part on the other and hide them. When the dean complimented me on the streaks, I decided I was able to do whatever I wanted to my hair and nobody would care. :)

Most of the time, nobody would mind!

But every couple of months, I get a "So, we have someone from the Ministry of Education for Malaysia coming through on Thursday, can you give them a tour of the library?" (Ok, it's not always Malaysia, but... high up government folks on tour.)

I am tempted to die the bottom half of my hair (it's a hair below bra strap length) colours, and then I could pin it up to hide it if I had to look properly formal. But the logistics for that are a little more complicated.

Yeah, I can understand that! I suggest clip-in colored hair extensions as another possible solution.

That's what I did a couple of years ago, bleached and dyed the last foot green. I put it up in a bun whenever I had public meetings and only had one person notice. The hardest part of the logistics for me was that the stylist was not used to dealing with butt long hair. But once it was done, he cheered up. I was able to touch up the green myself, because it was all in reach. Now that I'm settled in my new job, I want to do it again.

Lovely!

Thank you!

It's beautiful! Anyone who would look sour over that deserves their own unhappiness.

Thank you! :D Life is too short to take your hair seriously!

Oh, that is simply marvellous. I... seem to not be allergic to the hair dyes my barber uses, so there's a chance I might go wild one day.

Though not quite as wild as that.

Thank you! :)

My hair has been various colors over the years, but the only allover colors I do tend to be reds (my stylist loves me in reds). The odder colors I do in highlights and streaks, instead of allover.

Your hair is AWESOME.

Poor woman, her worst punishment must be a joyless existence, if she felt she had to glare at you.

Thank you!

And yeah--I am sorry that she feels that people shouldn't express joy and art in their person. Life is too short to take yourself seriously, I say.

So many pretty colors.

I know! You can't see the really nice teal lock in the picture above, more's the pity. XD

It looks wonderful!

It looks so good on you! *^^* I love oil slick colors. (The shades I'm using now aren't quite oil slick anymore--I switched largely because I wanted the purple to stand out more than it did. But oil slick is such a neat effect.)

Thank you! :D

I love purples, but I work at a university whose colors are purple and white and god forbid anyone think I have school spirit!

That is awesome hair.

Thank you! :D