The Price of Beauty

I am not crazy about getting my hair done. This may sound strange to other women...but it causes me a lot of anxiety. I always wonder if the bangs will be too short or the layers too shaggy. And coloring is worrisome, too. I had a bad experience in 2005....the year I turned 40. I won't go into detail, but an allergic reaction caused my forehead and eyes to swell to elephant-man proportions. I scared the children in the neighborhood for a good week...but my hair looked spectacular. That was the last time I dyed my hair.

Hair color is important to my daughters. My girls love their hair and are quite obsessed with achieving the right look. My 14 year old daughter (Rachel) prefers the punk look and has opted for jet black hair with purple highlights. She gave me the heads up last night at suppertime that she wants to dye it red...not Julianne Moore red...more of the Raggedy-Ann variety. Her current look has already set me back $300 since September. That has made a big dent in my wine and chocolate budget.

Emily is a bit more conservative. She had her first set of highlights when she was 14...just a few blonde strands to lighten it for the summer. Next, she had reddish-plum highlights and then...after excessive flat-ironing and blow-drying..she was told (at the ripe age of 15) to stop hurting her hair. It wasn't growing. I have always had thick hair so this was shocking to me. She dyed it back to her natural color and waited.

This year she started Grade 11. She wanted to experience life as a blonde...so she had a million highlights put in to give her a subtle, overall effect. I picked her up after the 3.5 hour appointment and was shocked...because she looked pretty much the same. That cost me $150...and another $50 in products because her hair was pretty damaged.

As mentioned in my previous blog, Emily has spunk. She told the hair dresser that she was not happy...the girl said it was a miscommunication.  She would redo it if we came back next week. We did. I dropped Emily off and returned 3 hours later. This time she was sporting a blond-red shade...and it was awful. It resembled the shade of a golden retriever...but not that nice. Apparently the hair-dresser ran out of time that evening so we would have to come back to tone it a bit. Was she kidding me? I am not a personal taxi service to the salon for my teenage daughters. There are other things I could be doing with my time...like popping open a bottle of red and unwrapping a Hershey.

Emily cried for the next few days... I cried on the inside. We spoke with the manager and they agreed to have another hairdresser fix the mistakes at no cost. The new hairdresser was a gem. She listened to what Emily was saying and I felt like I was leaving her in capable hands for the next two hours.

Upon my return, Emily was waiting anxiously at the front for me...she was grinning ear to ear. She had even used her own money to buy some special Argon Oil to make her hair feel silky. Should I mention how she looked? Her hair was brown again. Yup. Three weeks, $230, and many tears later, she was back to her natural shade. And she loved it. But all is not lost..other than my money, that is. Since this experience, she has learned to be more precise about what she wants. She is currently a dark red-brown and I love it...and so does she.

So it's probably good that I don't like getting my hair done. I've probably spent $125 on my own hair in the last year. And I think I look presentable. I use dollar store shampoos....sometimes I splurge on the ones at the drugstore...if they have a good sale on. But life is a balancing act...I budget what I spend on myself so the kids can have the little luxuries in life.  When they smile, I smile.