Shameless plug

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Before starting this entry I want to put in a plug for my youtube channel.  I have just organized my videos by category- swim, faith, boxing, singing, health, food subscriptions, makeup subscriptions and lifestyle subscriptions.

Even if you don’t go on youtube much I would really appreciate it if you could subscribe to my channel, maybe like a few of my videos. I’d love to make the videos more professional, create an intro, maybe review some movies.  I have lots of ideas, so if you feel so inclined head over to http://www.youtube.com/smilingldsgirl

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Ok.  So back to the real story.  Growing up my Mother made it very clear if either my sister and I got a tattoo or dyed our hair we would be in big trouble (more for the tattoo but still).   At least that was the impression I had.

I also thought my mother didn’t want me to wear make up which wasn’t true so who knows what her real stance was?  Anyway, she at the least discouraged it but I think part of that is she always loved my natural color of hair, as do I.

That said, I did always wonder what it would be like to have blonde hair or black, something different.  Now mind you I have had basically the same hair style since I was 15 years old (past shoulder, usually curly/wavy with long layers).  This is me at 17 and it’s pretty much never changed:

I had one ill advised attempt at short hair in college which I thankfully do not have a photo of and I vowed to never go short again, especially really short.  My feeling is that once you have short pixie cut you can never go back because the growing out process is so awkward most give up.

A short bob that I had at one point made me look like a poodle because the curls were very pronounced at that length.   Anyway, I’ve always had the same hair and liked it.

However…

On my mission I didn’t get my hair cut one time because I didn’t trust anyone and didn’t want to use precious break time to do it (I was always hoping for a comp who was a stylist but no luck) .  This is me in the last month of my mission.

You can see how long and scraggly it got but I still kind of like it.  My mission was like a pressure cooker of stress, emotion, panic and exaltation and I noticed the within the first 6 months I noticed a gray hair and then another and more.

By the time I went home I had a lot and it was honestly quite upsetting.  I had enough things going against me with my weight and general awkwardness, gray hairs seemed unfair!

So, it wasn’t soon after I got home that I started coloring my hair.  Not because I don’t like my color but because I didn’t want the increasingly prominent grays to show.  I have one spot on the left side of my head that is almost entirely gray roots if I did not color it and I’m just not ready for that.  As the divine Nora Ephron said:

“There’s a reason why forty, fifty, and sixty don’t look the way they used to, and it’s not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It’s because of hair dye. In the 1950’s only 7 percent of American women dyed their hair; today there are parts of Manhattan and Los Angeles where there are no gray-haired women at all.”

Well said.  Once I had given into the idea of hair dye I wondered what sort of colors I should pick.  Most of the time I go with something fairly similar to my natural color because that’s what I like but occasionally I’ve added tints of red, black, and even auburn.  I tend to shy away from highlights because they are so hard and expensive to maintain (plus they don’t really help with the gray problem).

Nevertheless, I still wanted to try something bolder but never had the guts.  Blonde, maybe a streak of pink, green or purple would be so much fun, but it’s such a big risk and it’s my hair, my beautiful hair.  😉  So I kept it the relatively the same.

Then the other day I was at Wallgreen’s and I always stop by the ‘as seen on tv’ section usually for a good laugh but I saw these:

HAIR CHALK!  I had never heard of such a thing!  The package is $15.95 for 4 colors (about 2 treatments per palate) and it washes away in one shampoo (more for blonde hair).  I brought it home and gave the purple a try and here’s what it looked like

I must say I was kind of stunned with how good it looked.  It made me feel happy to see my face in the mirror.  Something about the purple is energizing and alive.  Dont you agree?  Everyone I have talked to loves the purple hair.  I got tons of positive feedback today at church, and my social networking friends on instagram, facebook and twitter have been resoundingly positive.

I have to admit that it has made me wonder.  Should I go purple?  What do you guys think?  Is it too out there for everyday?

I mean I think I could give Katy Perry a run for her money…

I would have to find someone to do it that I really trusted which has been tough lately.  I wouldn’t let just anyone dye my hair purple.  Thoughts?