Purple Locks ~ A rather long tale of hair coloring under the influence of PMS

So I was feeling a little blue on New Year's Eve during the early day and decided I needed a little pick me up in the way of beauty. Never a good time to venture into new hair color technique territory, but hey, it's never stopped me before.

Some of you may know that I am a licensed beautician. And some of you may think to yourselves, "is that right." and not in an inquisitive tone but perhaps a sarcastic one. hee hee, I might have had one of those "is that right" moments on Saturday.

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, a little irritated, a little wistful and more than a little PMSy. So while I shoved the last of my Hershey Kisses in my mouth I headed downstairs where I keep my "beauty shop". I had enough color for a root touch up but felt like a little something more jazzy for the new year. I found some demi color in a great shade of red violet and some bleach... perfect. For those of you who don't know, demi color lasts longer than a semi permanent color but does wash out eventually.

Slopping my color on my roots I head back upstairs to suddenly decide to sweep and mop the kitchen ( I get easily distracted). So by the time I head back down to put the red violet on the rest of my hair, it was nearly time to take off my root color. Pfffft... 45 minutes is just a suggestion, right?

I go back down and add the demi color. I do this in the basement because I have 3 big splotch marks on my bathroom floor now from previous PMS moments :( (really it should stand for Passing Moments of Sanity) ooooo, the bottle looks a really pretty shade of purple I noticed as I took it upstairs after the color was on my hair.

I wash my hair out upside down in my tub and again notice oooo what a pretty shade of violet! Then it dons on me. Hmmmm.. This is not only a little purple but it's pretty dark too. Oh well. It's just hair.

So I get it all washed out and look in the mirror. Great. I now look like Dracula with a dark widow's peak on my pasty forehead. Apparently over an hour might be a tad too long for regular hair color. Oops. Dang and I don't have bangs to hide it either. Hmmm... scissors? I had enough sense at that moment to think, mmm. no. not yet. Then I notice wow, my hair is pretty dark. Where's that bleach? Back downstairs I go.

I've got this Matrix bleach given to me by my friend. She was nice enough to give me a little bag so I could sample it before I purchased a tub of it. Great - except there are no instructions. Each line of hair care use their own gimmick of ratios and I wasn't familiar with Matrix so I try to call my friend. Dang. It's New Year's Eve, I hate to bother her. I try to call the beauty supply house, closed. I looked online. The ratio or recipe if you will, is a closely guarded secret that I could not find anywhere even after registering in as a hairdresser. They weren't even civil enough to post their phone number. Bastards.

Meh... Just do it I thought. So I did. I threw the bleach powder in a bowl, added some peroxide and squeezed a big glob of the toner in. Mixed it all up and thought that looked pretty good. Great! Now I just have to try to foil my own hair. Ick. Not easy. Things would be so much easier if I could just take my head off and do it, then pop my head back on. Yeah, not happenin. 

So I managed to get it slopped on all the while forgetting to put on gloves. (Now I have sandpaper fingers.) I remember reading online that you can add heat and it would speed up the process. So I think I'm in a hurry and get under my dryer. After what I feel is 2 minutes, I get up and look in the mirror expecting to see blonde. Nope. Nothing. Get back under and turn heat all the way up. 10 minutes later get up and look again half expecting hair to come out with foil. Nope, nothing still. I figured the peroxide must be too old. So I give up and go upstairs to wash it all out and give myself a proper shower. Wow, again with the dark purple washing over me. hmmm.

After the shower I notice some high lights. No too bad I'm thinking, while not noticing my purple hair. (Hey, it was wet) I get ready and we all go to friends to play cards and have an adult beverage or two. When we get there, my friend's husband says wow, your hair. Uh. Really? Notice my husband and kid didn't say a thing to me about it. I think my hair could be on fire and Daryl wouldn't say anything about it. So I just laugh and say yeah, I colored it today and they just look at me and smile. I guess that's what one does when there really isn't something nice to say. haha

Fast forward to the next day and I finally see my hair in the daylight. Holy Shit. I've got dark Gothic purple hair with pink hi-lights. Happy Fucking New Year to me. Please excuse my language but it was a bit of a shock and I am secretly a potty mouth.

So now I look like a short fat pasty troll with blackish purple hair and pinky stained streaks around my face wearing dark red lipstick and pale white skin. I look like a garish Halloween trainwreck. Have you ever had those Aha moments when you really see something in a different light? Well this was mine. And if it weren't so dang funny I'd be crying.

It has since lightened up a little bit and I've calmed down. It's not seeming quite so purple, it's more of the dark red that I wanted in the first place. And the streaks are not so pink more coppery now, which is good. I wish I had thought to take my picture when I saw myself in the daylight for the first time. Scary. This might be my new get up for Halloween 2012.

I want to wish all of you a Happy New Year, since this is my first post of 2012. I hope this year is better for all of us and brings joy, inspiration and creativity.

You are worth the time

I had to share this in case you are like me and have not seen it yet. This moved me to tears as it rings so true to my life and I know so many others. Let it give us courage and strength to continue to create through life's adversaries and nay sayers. Enjoy...

Thank you, Jan Phillips (creator). If you go to her website, she is giving a free downloadable book called The ARt of Original Thinking - The Making of a Thought Leader.

Kissy kissy and aha moments

Here's a little magnet I made with a cute phrase by Gale. It is 3 inches by 3 inches. It turned out pretty cute, I may make a bookmark with it and maybe a greeting card... who knows.

I'm rather disillusioned with the whole art show/craft show scene. I have a craft show this Saturday and I'm ready to bail. As a matter of fact I'm pretty sure I'm not going now. I feel like we're beating a dead horse here...  I don't know if it's the economy or just the general lack of interest but we (my partner and I) are tired of putting so much into our pieces and just not getting anything out of it, including sales. She's busy, I'm busy and nothing is getting my full attention.

It's a little bit of a relief to say it out loud and liberating. When it starts to feel like a burden, I guess it's just not right. I'll still keep my Artfire and Etsy shop going, and maybe even continue to add items but the shows are just not a viable way for us to sell it seems. I hope to concentrate on my son and spending more time with him as I know these precious years are fleeting. I don't want him to think that Mommy is always on the "puter" and not making things or spending time with him, so I'm going to make a change.

I still plan to blog, as this is an outlet for me and I've made such wonderful friendships with a lot of you. I really enjoy reading your blogs as well. And who knows, this may change in a year or so, I'm rather emotional at the moment so I can't seem to keep my mind made up but my soul feels lighter now that I've decided this and I don't like feeling yucky and not good enough.

So please, keep coming around... you guys are my only cheerleaders since I've lost my mother. Speaking of which the 20th of this month is the one year mark.

*long breath*

a long and lonely year. I miss her terribly and wonder will this pit in my stomach and tears running down my cheeks ever stop?

Thinking sometimes hurts.

I'm sure you've all had moments... aha moments as Oprah call them. Last night I had a rather aha moment at about 2 in the morning. I had managed to sit and watch the last two episodes of the season finally for Work of Art. I've watched, intrigued the entire season and haven't understood a lot of the reasoning behind the judges comments and verdict. Then it came to me as I sat teary eyed and watched as Perigrin was so obviously moved by her own piece and then moved again as others "got it". Also as Abdi (my favorite from the start) presented an emotionally intense piece that I fully related to (a baptism). One or two of the judges in the end show finally started to make sense. They explained it a little more to my understanding at least by the end of the season. I usually have no problem admitting I'm wrong or no good at something, but this is a little embarrassing. I guess because I all these years, going way back to crayons on the walls... I've always felt in my heart I was to create stuff and try to be good at it. Even as now, I am 40 years of age and probably done with half of my life... and I've up until last night thought I was to try to do my best at creating something... technically. I've apparently missed the bus all these years because I think I now get it. It's not how good an artist you are... like how well I can draw say an apple and make the viewer see a great drawing of an apple. It's how I can reach down in my soul and pull out something that can make the viewer feel something. Something that I felt as I created it. Wow.

I've always felt like I was the artist outside looking in at the better artists. Maybe that is why I have such a blank canvass syndrome. You know, when I have a blank page in front of me and I can't for the life of me think of a single thing to draw. That I can't draw it that well so I don't even attempt it. I need to draw from within. I've just learned that and I hope that I can learn to do that.

How do you "draw" from within?