Hair Color

It was the question on this blog that started it! What would my hair say? Trivial, perhaps but not this morning. This morning my hair screams "brioche?" I will admit, it is an interesting color for hair in the realm of blonde, brunette, red, black. What is it about this "hair" thing that preoccupies my thoughts (3 hours yesterday to end up with brioched-hair)?

Hair color speaks of identity. It is the outward image of who I am on the inside and usually, the first thing we say when describing ourselves to someone. "I am blonde." "I am a redhead." The color takes on characteristics of its own. Blonde speaks of Hollywood platinumed glamor, preferred by gentlemen, dumb (likely coined by a brunette), sun-kissed California beaches and golden tans, money(how much is required to remain blonde, live in California and spend time on the beach). A brunette is more serious, a redhead more fiery.

Ethnicity has a hair color that may sometimes surprise but most often allows us to identify country of origin. Jesus as a blond - possible (He is God!) but not likely considering his Jewish heritage and birth in the Middle East. A Southeast Asian with red or blonde hair is a sign of malnutrition, a fact I just recently encountered on a recent trip to Cambodia. A South African blonde speaks of colonialism, and so it goes around the world until, of course, we get to America, the melting pot of hair colors.

So a desire to change our hair color would suggest a deeper desire to change our identity somehow, to remove that thing that the color says about us and take on that thing we want so much to be. And stupidly, we think we can accomplish all of this from a box in a drugstore or in a visit to a salon four times a year for touchups!

Since I was a teenager in the Beachboy surfing crazed years, I have longed to be a California blonde. Born the only brunette in a family of blondes, I so wanted to stand on the beach, surfboard in hand and live the carefree life of a beach bum. Instead I was a brunette straight A student in an all-girls parochial school from a working class family who couldn't swim, let alone surf! Not that the waves were big enough to drown anyone on Galveston Island unless a hurricane was approaching, but still!

Oh the stories I could tell about my various shades and hues. Life changes always seemed to come first, then the hair color selection would follow. And so it remains today. I would like to say I am returning to my roots but that would be a lie. My roots are gray but I am not! I am returning to the person God created - a layered, vibrant brunette with gold and red highlights or, at least, I will be just as soon as I get back from the drugstore.