My Hair Journey: Part One

Since I can remember, I have always been the girl with the long hair. I have briefly experimented with shoulder length cuts, and even a bob once (what a mistake!), but I always go back and grow my hair out again. By the time I was 11 years old I already wanted to experiment with hair dye, and for some reason my very laid-back father let me dye my hair purple. As I'm half Asian, my natural hair is a very rich, dark brown (a colour I haven't seen on my head in nearly 10 years!) and so fortunately the colour didn't take very well - not that one little set-back was going to stop me! After that first time I suddenly developed a taste for hair dye. 

After that stint in Year 7 (grade 7 for my American readers), my family moved a fair old way from the Midlands to the South coast, and so I started a new school. At my first secondary school, my purple-haired wannabe-grunger ways had been the norm, but I got bit of a culture shock when my new school seemed to be Chav Capital! The baggy jeans and black t-shirts I had been used to were definitely not in fashion here, and a standard Lonsdale hoody seemed to be everyone's outer-garment of choice to attempt to hide their school uniform. All the girls seemed to be sporting blonde highlights, regardless of their natural hair colour, and so in a shameless bid to fit in - I did the same.

Blonde highlights just growing out from my 14 year old hair

Mind you, this attempt to fit in seemed to work - I made friends and enjoyed my days at school. I no longer had to make an effort to adopt these norms (note the horrific white eyeliner), as they simply became my routine behaviours.

By the age of 15 I had begun to start finding out who I was, and realised that I didn't like my blonde low lights, or the clothes I had persuaded my mum to buy so that I could look like the other girls. This was a big moment in my life, and saw me reaching for Schwarzkopf's XXL Colour in RED. 

Pictured in 2010 and 2011 with my usual long, red hair

I sported this colour and cut all the way until the summer of 2011 when Rihanna and Cheryl Cole both famously dyed their hair red, igniting an absolute tidal wave of girls to rush out to their nearest Boots and pick up some red hair dye. I couldn't stand being the same as everyone else (I know, how hipster of me), so I went for a complete image overhaul. At this point, Made in Chelsea (this is just a semi-reality programme about the filthy rich, for those of you who don't watch it) had also begun airing on Channel 4 and I had taken quite a liking to Caggie's hair.

Caggie Dunlop from Made in Chelsea

I took this picture of Caggie to my stylist and simply said "I want my hair to look like hers". In this same appointment, they also stripped and bleached my hair to within an inch of its life to remove all traces of the red (5 years of dying your hair red will definitely leave you with some hair stains!), and put a nice medium brown colour all over, with a few added low-lights. Although the cut wasn't quite what I'd had in mind, I was very happy with it.

Pictured on NYE 2011

As you can see, my light brown locks were a far cry from my usual red number, and I was definitely happy. I felt that 19 was too old to still be dying my hair red - although I still feel a pang of jealousy when I see other girls with their red hair.

Now, if you know me *really* well, you'll know that I have an irrational fear of going to the hairdressers. Don't ask me why, I can't explain it, but if I was told I'd never have to get my hair cut again I think my outlook on life would be considerably more positive! Due to this ridiculous fear, I rarely go to the hairdressers. It has currently been over 7 months since that hair cut, and I only just got my hair chopped yesterday (pictures of that will be up soon). Obviously in that time, hair will grow out.

Pictured at a friend's birthday in May 2012

The light brown mixed in with my natural dark roots, and any style had been lost in a sea of split ends and uneven length! I gave up heat styling as in true honesty, I prefer my natural waves to poker straight heat-induced hair, and it has saved me a good 10 minutes on my every day routine! By this time I had also decided to grow out my side-fringe, but this got a bit annoying when I wanted to put my hair up - I had to deal with that annoying "middle" stage of hair length which was too awkward-looking to leave down, but would fall back down if I attempted to merge it in with the rest of my hair!

So this is my hair journey to date. As I said, I got my hair cut yesterday, and I'm planning something a lot different again soon! What are your tales of your hair journeys? 

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