Going Ginger

It's no secret that I found love in redheads. And by "found love," I mean I stare and daydream about having the right complexion so I could sport red hair myself. What I (and I suppose a lot of other Filipinos) don't realize is that there are so many other shades for hair aside from our born-with black hair.

But finally I took a leap of fate!

I've been coloring my hair for about a year. I have gradually gone and dared lighter shades as the time progressed starting with light brown, burgundy to a dark red. 

 

Since scheduling our flight, I have been trying to decide the best time to get my hair done. I knew that I wasn't ready to have a drastic change in terms of length but I did figure that I wanted to change my hair color and have it professionally done. I let my hair grow uncolored for about five months and my hair grew so much in that span of time. And the pains of having to color long hair was that it took much too long and I could never see what kind of job I was doing at the back side of my head. 

I called F Salon in Greenbelt to do my hair. I believe it is an offshoot of Bench Fix, the salon that I normally went to. I went to F Salon a few days before to see if they had the lighter shade of red that I wanted. 

And, as expected, I was told that the only way to get the lighter shade I wanted was to do some bleaching. Dun dun duuun! I agreed. 

The bleaching process itself wasn't so bad. I was expecting some searing pain but nothing too painful like my rebonding experience a couple of years ago.

This is what my hair looked like post-bleaching. It was actually the exact shade of red I wanted but the hair stylist said that this wasn't the final color just yet. I crossed my fingers that it would still be the same shade. 

But obviously that relief of non-pain was short-lived. The moment the dye touched my hair my scalp was screaming for help. Haha! I felt like my head was melting.

Yes, I took photos in a fitting room while shopping after the salon. :))

A lot of people commented "you're blonde!" and after a couple of times explaining that it was actually a red shade, I just started to nod my head at "blonde." It really depends on the lighting situation when I'm with people. Haha!

After a week of having this hair color, some of the lightness or "blondeness" I believe has faded out. It's now a nice gingery color. People still mistake it for blonde sometimes though.

- Mishie