Question #29
ByWow, it’s been a while since I took the time to ask you a completely random question, hasn’t it? Shucks, I’m sure you’ve missed it.
You all know why I do this don’t you? It’s because I write about myself and my life (and my days with snakes and soccer balls) so you get to learn way too much about me. I love the chance to learn more about you too. It’s as simple as that!
I mentioned in this post that I’ve never dyed my hair, even though I was very tempted to after our third son was born and my hair went from blonde to brown and everyone looked at me with shocked faces and said things like, “Ooh, your hair is brown!!”
What, they hadn’t seen anyone with brown hair before?
Throw in the fact that we had just made a big move from Colorado to Nebraska, I had a four month old, a two year old and a four year old…I was sleep deprived…and my hormones were wacky.
The “ooh your hair is brown” comments were getting to me. No one followed the statement up with “and it’s still so pretty” or “and I just love it”. Nope. They just let me know that my hair was brown. All the time. Hmph.
Difficult as it was, I was mature enough to keep from saying something back like, “So is that mole on your chin” or “Well, at least I have hair”. Aren’t you proud?
Anyhoo…I’ve grown past my bitterness (ehem) and have now accepted the fact that my hair is no longer blonde, but brown. Apparently everyone else around me has accepted it too because I never hear the comments anymore. I guess now if I dyed my hair blonde, they’d say, “Ooh, your hair is blonde!” We wouldn’t want those comments would we?
I just never wanted to start dyeing my hair because I knew that once I started, I’d always have to do it. Isn’t that the way it works? And, in general I just like natural hair colors. (Easy for me to say since I don’t have any gray yet, huh?)
So, I’m just curious to know. What color is your hair? Is it your natural color, or do you have highlights, or is it dyed a new color? How often do you dye it? Do you do it yourself?
In case you missed this post…I do cut my own hair (because I’m CRAZY like that). I got it WAY shorter than I wanted to last summer and haven’t touched it since. It’s finally back to the length I like it.
And also, just a reminder…my hair is brown. Just ask anyone around me. That’s what they’ve all told me.
My hair has been black, purple, red, brown and blonde. My natural color is blonde, which it is now.I quit coloring about 2yrs ago because I couldn’t stand all the fuss, having to touch up, dye..etc. I used to do it myself, it’s really not hard with the dyes that are on the market now. There are temporary ones you could try that wash out in like 24 shampoos. :)
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Hi Laura! My hair is definitely very red. Hence the blog title (Red and Honey). All my life I’ve gotten comments from random strangers. It’s 100% natural, and in fact I’ve never seen anyone with my color of hair that wasn’t natural. I don’t think you can get my color from a bottle, which I like… it makes me unique. I did dye it in High School (home job), and it was black with chunks of orange underneath where I missed it… it was a disaster. I had to get the color all stripped out then re-dyed but it was all wrong… oh dear. Anyway… this is getting long, so I’ll stop here. I won’t even go into my Anne of GG complex, lol :)
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Mine is brown, but I’ve been getting a streak of grey since I turned 30 almost 3 years ago. My aunt and my mother both started greying in a certain spot – and I am, too. Unfortunately, it’s right at the front/top of our heads, so it’s quite noticable. I’ve been coloring that streak for just over a year – I do it myself. I always said I wanted to go grey naturally and never tried ANY kind of coloring until this (except sun-in in high school), but after sleep deprivation, difficulty getting rid of baby weight, lousy skin from hormones, and grey hair, I had to do *something*!
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My hair is naturally blonde. When I was in college I did lighter blonde highlights for a while, but the only time I really dyed my hair was the summer before my first semester in college- I dyed it neon pink. It was supposed to be temporary wash-out color. Uh, no. It did not wash out, and a few years later I was finally trimming off the last bits of neon pink hair. I’ve shyed away from dying ever since.
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My hair is “dishwater blonde”. I tend to get great natural highlights when I spend time in the sun. I’ve been noticing a lot of gray creeping in lately (I’m two months away from the big 3-0). I fully intend to go gray naturally, mostly because I’m too lazy to color it and maintain. :)
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No dyeing for me – ever! I will do haircuts that encourage my natural curls, but I’ve never put any dye in my hair – not even spray on or Kool Aid stuff.
My husband still likes me! ;)
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My hair is coloured a reddish brown and has been coloured since I was 18, wow thats twenty years ago. When I had kids I stopped dying my hair and only started again when I had my third child, four years ago.
I now coulour my hair using colours that wash out in six weeks. Thankfully the regrowth is not too obvious.
Julie
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Mine is brown…with increasingly more gray every day! I do not dye it, and hope I continue to stand by my conviction to not start:)
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Laura, you will laugh at this. Sitting behind your family at the funeral on Tuesday, I was thinking to myself, “If I met Matt and Laura today, would I later recall that I had met blonde people or brown people?” Seriously. I did think that. I also thought, “Look at all that nice hair.”
I had an experience very much the opposite of yours. A former childhood blondie, I have been very brown for many years. In my 20′s I was in the presence of someone who was almost in tears about the fact that not only was she having to color her hair to keep it blonde like it was ‘supposed’ to be, but she it had dawned on her that her children would possibly end up with brown hair when they grew up, and she could hardly stomach the thought and had been crying about it all day. I kid you not.
And of course that did not settle very well in my noggin, because I guess I always valued brains over beauty, and actually had never wanted to be someone that fit the stereotypical blonde joke. And of course, a little offended, I was inwardly asking myself, “And what is so WRONG with BROWN hair????” I *preferred* darker hair and *preferred* to be taken seriously and didn’t *need* – or even want – blonde hair as a show of… whatever it is supposed to show!
I never said a word about that to my girl, who like her mother is no longer a little blondie. Yet she herself decided that she looks more credible and less ‘fluffy’ with brown eyes than her natural blue ones. My former blue-eyed blondie is now a dark-eyed, dark-haired intellectual. Ha!
The answer to your question? The only color I have ever had on my hair was when our niece Casey, who was a stylist-in-training, begged me to let her highlight my hair. I said, “Only if you can make it DARKER!” She put dark highlights in and they were gone six weeks later. :)
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Like Lenetta I said I wasn’t going to dye my hair. Then I decided that when I went gray I’d become a redhead like I’d always wanted to be. (I’m American Scots-Irish – growing up I thought it was really unfair that I’ve got an obviously Irish maiden name and brown hair.)
Ultimately when I did start to go gray I had grown into actually liking my specific hair color (dark brown with auburn tones). So last fall my Sis in law, who is a stylist, helped me find a semi-permanent color that almost exactly matches my regular natural color. So I’ve used that. But I don’t bother with it right on the calendar. I wait until the new grays spring up and irritate me enough, or my husband is coming home from being out of the country – whichever comes first. LOL I’d like to do it “on time” but I’ve got a 21 month old and finding time when he’s asleep and I’m not beat tired myself, with hands covered in chemicals….. ‘Nuff said.
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a former blonde here. I was a regular tow head when i was a youngster. About the age of 14 my hair started to darken. Now it is brown.
About the age of 16 I continually was encouraged my family to dye it back blonde. By 20 I did everyone’s bidding and dyed it blonde…I mean blonde!
Let me tell you, it’s a pain in the neck to upkeep! I finally let it grow out (it took forever) and you know what, I like my brown hair. I really do.
I have a child who is a towhead and people always ask, “how did that happen” they rarely believe I was that blond.
If you ever decide to do anything…just do some “natural” highlights.
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I started out blonde as a little child, but was dark by the time I went to school. Used “Sun In” some in high school (not recommended!!). After the birth of each of our four children, my hair would get darker and darker….so much so that I was asked if I was coloring it! Highlighted a few times during that time. Now that I’m getting gray “sprigs” I’ve started highlighting again. My husband pulls it through a cap and it’s only about $7.00!!
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I used to have high lites when I worked in salons. I would trade a massage for cut and color. Now I’m too cheap! I’m back to my very dark, almost black hair. Lately quite a bit of gray has been popping up. I may have to fit coloring into the budget… :(
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My hair is brown as well. It’s a dark brown. I did try when I was very young to dye it. But I discovered I like it better natural. And now that I’m 30 I’ve got a few gray hairs, and I am letting them grow in gracefully. But I feel the same way, I just wouldn’t want to keep dying it over and over. I’ve got so many other things to do with my time.
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Your post was hilarious to me. I have been coloring my hair for over 15 years. I am 44. I got my first gray at 21. It started with every 6 months with semi-permanent then went to 3 months then it went to permanent and every 6 weeks when I got my hair cut. So then down to 4 and by the time last summer rolled around, I was coloring every 3 weeks…..a little expensive if you don’t do it at home. I cannot stand any regrowth and I figure if you are going to color it then keep it colored with nothing growing to show a different color. Anyway last summer, after being a sahm for one year, I decided to just let my hair be my hair to save money. It took me a year to get my courage up because I knew my hair wasn’t just gray but white in the front. My hubby was all for the natural look. He had been bugging me for a year to just let it go. Then the drama began about how to get it to my natural gray instead of coloring to my used to be natural brown. Needless to say, my stylist cut it as short as it could be without shaving it and it looked awesome. She did that until all the color was gone and boy were people suprised when they saw me. I loved it right away. It was freedom. You think the comments about going brown were bad. Try having a 3 year old then 2 and a 7 yo then 6. The grandma word came around quite a bit. A Walmart trip started with a worker telling my son that he wished he had a Grandma like me that would buy him toys. My son just looked at me and said, “you aren’t Grandma”. Then at a parade, the granny basketball players asked me to join. I could go on and on with the Grandma comments. At first, I was a little surprised but we just laugh every time it happens. It is now kind of a joke around our house. We are all used to it and I love the freedom. I even had the girls at bible study pray for me to have courage when I decided to do this. The one thing that no one told me was that in the bible, it says, “Gray hair is a crown of splendor” Prov. 16:31 NIV and “Gray hair is a mark of distinction” Prov. 16:31 MSG I wish I would have read that a year ago. Now that is what I say when people ask me why I went gray. Sorry for the long post. This is just a funny thing that we talk about in our family so I am right there with you about hair changing color!!!!!! Thanks for the post.
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My natural color is brown but in the summer months the sun has always taken its tole and lightened it. Now we have a pool, and I definately turn blonde in the summer. It is a real pain once the sun goes away and the brown starts to grow back so I just use a little sun-in to blend the new growth in. I have also noticed that my brown haired boys get lighter in the summer and really blonde at their temples.
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I let a friend color my hair 15 years ago — it was a tragic Ronald McDonald red. My hairdresser aunt had to fix it after hours…
I’m brunette with one squirrely little gray hair on my part.
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After my pregnancies, my hair color stayed the same, but each time, it gets curlier. I used to have poker straight hair, now it’s REALLY wavy. About a year ago, I quit trying to dry and pull it straight and just go with the flow.
I think that when God fashioned us, He matched our skin tones etc.. perfectly with our hair color. Personal preference, I know.
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After my pregnancies, my hair color stayed the same, but each time, it gets curlier. I used to have poker straight hair, now it’s REALLY wavy. About a year ago, I quit trying to dry and pull it straight and just go with the flow.
I think that when God fashioned us, He matched our skin tones etc.. perfectly with our hair color. Personal preference, I know.
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Another blond child who has gone brown. It really is a light brown with blond and gray (smile) highlights now. I did dye it for a bit in college. My city grown mother still tries to get me to dye it now. She hass a hard time grasping the country frugal lifestyle we’ve adopted. As for cutting I am blessed to have a best friend who is a hairdresser (retired, homeschooling mom) who cuts all the girls’ hair in the family. What a blessing!
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Me too! Blonde & brown-eyed as a child, now brown. I have been highlighted, bleached, and colored blonde, red and all shades of brown. :-P
I was heavily highlighting with my 1st baby, was back to natural and really long with #2 and still brown but bobbed with #3…my hair is sometimes the only way I can tell the preggo & birth pics apart, lol.
Now I am in that terrible cycle of covering greys that I think I would quite like if I could just get rid of the awfull root line where the not so natural brown color grows out….
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Is nondescript a color? I was an Anne of GG too when I was young, beautiful color that my 3rd child has now. After each pregnancy it dulled a bit and now after four, well, it’s just sorta hair. Not brown, not blond, not red, just a curly head covering…
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I’m 27 with long brown hair. I, too, have chosen to not color it up to this point. I really like my hair color. It’s main color is light brown, but I’ve got natural (honest!) highlights in just about about every other hair color under the sun: red, auburn, black, dark brown, blonde (light and dark). My 19m. DS is blonde and people always ask where he gets it (DH also has brown hair). We just tell them that DH and my brother both were blonde as little kids and it darkened as they got older (which is absolutely true). Good luck with your hair! We’ll see if my attitude about dyeing changes when I start to go grey! :-)
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My natural color is a mousy brown with lots of gray coming in. I keep it colored every 6-8 weeks with a reddish brown (I had natural red highlights anyhow, so just took them all over). Even my 8yo son will tell me when it is getting time to go back to the salon when he sees the gray starting to show. Too funny.
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I am also a former blonde turned brown. I’ve tried highlights several times but the upkeep is way too expensive. Also, after each pregnancy, my straight hair has turned into a spiraled, curly, frizzy mess! Needless to say, it’s in a pony tail or bun every day!
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Red head here! Not a bright orange/red, and not auburn…somewhere in between. In high school I added blond highlights, but not only was it $$, but I was getting too blonde for my skintones. I have been all natural since about 20 (so 9 years). Funny, not one of my kids got my red hair (my sister is also a red head and her kids are brown). My kids are all blonde like daddy (who is now brown) was as a child!
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I suppose it’s brown – with some gray. I’m *only* 31 but it’s been growing in for a few years now. I used to dye my hair darker or redder, but around the time I was pregnant with our first, and the doctor told me to avoid it carefully in *whatever* trimester, I figured if it was pretty bad to do then, it probably wasn’t very good to do any time. Plus, managing to do as much as *wash* it regularly is hard enough, let alone color it! :)
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My hair is red and has been since I was born. I do appreciate the color – like Beth’s it is rather unique and I’ve never met any other redhead with quite the same color – natural or dyed. I was tempted to dye it in high school, but was always worried that the chemicals would alter my color permanently and my auburn hair would end up orangey. Plus, the Lord gave me the freckles, fair skin, and natural coloring to go with my particular hair color – I trust He knew what he was doing and that I could not do it any better!
I just turned 30 and get the occasional white hair (I’ve heard that redheads go white, not grey – can anyone confirm?) that I jokingly name after challenging situations or people in my life. Since I’ve never been that great at makeup or doing anything fancy with my appearance, I think I’ll just let nature take its course when my color starts to fade. Most importantly, my husband agrees!
By the way – I think you look beautiful with brown hair!
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My hair is naturally brown, so now that I have a skunk stripe of gray blessing the front center of my head, I have tried various shades of brown. Back in the fall I dyed it myself (as usual) and it was BLACK. I mean, holy smokies, shoe polish, black. Our school librarian said, it was “severe”. My hairdresser, whom I went to for a major intervention, said it was “harsh”. I looked like Morticia’s daughter. Nice. I did get, “well, at least it makes your blue eyes pop out”. Hey, my glass is half full!
In high school, I had purple, maroon, super black (but it was cool then, right?) red…you name it. I also had my belly button pierced. Ah, those were the days…right?! :)
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Brown. Plain brown. Always has been. But probably won’t always be. For the past 10 years I’ve gotten stray gray hairs mixed in every now and then.
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I too am one that started with blond hair. It has progressively gotten darker as I get older but I still consider myself a sandy blond. My hair is incredibly thick, course, and grows like an aggressive garden weed so coloring my hair isn’t cheap. I have done some foils but even just 6 crown foils for me is a bare minimum of $60 every 4 weeks. It just isn’t worth it when I have long hair. Now if I cut my hair short again, I might reconsider. I have a great variety of color in my hair from red, brown, and blond as well. I am starting to look like Morticia from The Munsters though because I have two two inch sections of grey at my temples. I used to say they were my skunk streaks but regardless, they are there to stay.
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My hair was blonde when I was little, but has been brown most of my life and has definitely gotten darker over the years. I’ve never colored it.
I learned this year that gray hairs are good: they are SPARKLES! I like that. I don’t have many sparkles yet, but I have to smile when I see them.
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Hi, My hair is dark brown and has always been very dark brown, but now it has some beginning gray “highlights”. :-) The closest I came to dying my hair was a temporary washout color about six years ago that was auburn. It was kind of fun, but a lot of work for something that didn’t last. I don’t color my hair now because my husband has strong feelings about it. He hates the ad that says, “Color – the way nature intended.” He says, “No, nature intended it to be gray.” :-) Its a battle I’m not (yet?) willing to fight.
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My hair was an almost white blond (with annoying dark roots, go figure) up until I was in my early 20′s. It started getting darker and after my first son at 28, it was no longer blonde but sort-of brown or, as I called it, “absence of color”. Fast forward 10 years and another kid, and thanks to the miracle of highlights, I am blonde again! The best part is that with my color of hair, it’s really difficult to find any gray!
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I think it’s interesting how our hair changes after having kids. Mine turned from stick straight to wavy. I had a cut that made it more wavy for a while, then I decided I like the bob I’ve had forever better.
I’ve dyed my hair for more than 10 years…too self-conscious of the gray hair. It started before I was married (who wants to marry a girl with some gray?) and has continued, because of course I have more gray hair now with three kids than I did before I was married!)
My hair is light brown, and I dye it to make it look the same as my hair looked in my 20s. I do it myself (every time I emerge from the bathroom, I announce “I just saved $150!).
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I am yet another one that started out as a blue-eyed towhead and am now dark brown. In high school, I stayed blonde through the use of sun-in and long hours in the sun, but underneath was getting darker and darker. Almost 8 children later, my hair is dark brown with hard-earned sparkles of silver. :-)
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I used to have blondish brown hair in high school the first half and then it turned a reddish blond brown. I have never colored my hair and probably will not until it goes pretty gray. When I do go and get my hair cut, which is not very often because I usually cut my own hair to save money. I also just hate the hassle of going in to get it done. Most people know that I don’t color it because there is no way anyone could color the color that I have. I am thankful for my hair color, but sometimes when I look in the mirror I can’t believe that it is as red as it is. I love reading your blog.
Renee
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I totally understand about your hair getting darker during pregnancy. Mine got a bit darker during my first pregnancy, and stayed that way afterward.
Our second son is a year old, and I had the strangest experience with that pregnancy. Throughout the pregnancy my very straight hair grew in black and wavy. And then it stopped after he was born. So, I had one wave, and one black horizontal stripe growing out of my head, getting slowly farther away from my scalp.
I could not stand it. A few months ago, I had my stylist color my hair. Now it’s red. When I first graduated from college, I had it dyed blond. During summer break this year I’m thinking about staying red and adding some really odd color, like purple. I LOVE coloring my hair!
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My hair is also brown. But I really like it! It’s kind of got a nice slightly redish hew to it. I don’t think I’ll ever color it. I’m with you, no muss no fuss. When it grays I’ll just live with it. Thankfully in my family hair graying doesn’t usually happen till around mid 40′s.
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My natural hair color is brown, but I do have it dyed now. I have quite a bit of grey for only 40 years old and I’m not quite ready for that many grey hairs. I get it dyed as close to my natural brown as possible and it works for me.
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Lucky you, your hair decided to turn one color, after my first baby, my hair turned dark brown at the roots for an inch then yellowish blonde the rest of the way. My solution: keep it colored, it looks terrible natural!
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I’ve always been blonde haired and blue eyed. In the last couple of years, though, my hair has gradually gotten darker and darker. Its still blonde, but it’s so dark it’s almost brown. I’ve been so sad about my darkening hair because I’ve always been blonde. I just can’t imagine being any other hair color. I finally got highlights put in yesterday. I really like how it looks, but I’m still debating if the money was really worth it.
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A couple of years ago I was convinced by a sister that it was time to “lighten up” my hair. It was making me look old. I loved it but it is way to expensive to keep it up.
After looking over all the other comments I realize I am an old gal on here. 50+ and lots of grey. I tell my kids that I have earned everyone of them! LOL
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I am a brunette – just like you Laura ;-)
Although I have always been a brunette – I have been a brunette with blonde higlights and a brunette with red highlights – I swore off coloring my hair until the gray highlights appeared and now I am a bottle brunette – nothing fancy – just as close to the brown the good Lord gave me without the reality of the gray…..I still feel too young for that ;-)
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OH, I am just like you… slowly over each child birth I went from med blond to dark brown with my last one… AND I too got those comments… I did highlight it after my 3rd child but since I have TONS of hair (NOT KIDDING, the most hair that almost every hair dresser has seen!) it was costing us toooo much money! SOO I decided to embrace the new brown haired me and now it is just a normal thing… of course when I see people from say… 10 yrs ago… they say things like… OH, you used to have MUCH Lighter hair….
“I KNOW!!!!!” AND most of all, my hubby misses the blond hair… but I tell him that blond wife left with the skinny one, and they aren’t coming back!!!!!!
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It’s funny that you would have this question posted! A good friend of mine came up with a great way to say that you color your hair—-I repigment it!! I do it myself because I just cannot pay the outrageous prices the salons charge! I normally try to stick with as close to my natural color as possible (my natural color is brown). But I just colored my hair yesterday and I bought a new type because I need something that will cover the gray better! I bought what I thought might be just a touch darker…YIKES it’s dark and seems to be reddish, I feel a little strange. But hey, on the upside…my husband actually noticed that I colored it! :)
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Don’t color your hair!!! That is, unless you want to become a slave of coloring it every so often! I have dyed my hair because I get bored of it (my natural color is brown), but after dying it a few times, the whole process just gets old! I’m not dying it any more until I get grays (which I’ve started to get, but not enough yet) My mother-in-law goes to a salon, and has to spent 2 hours for the lady to dye it!!! Don’t do it!
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My question would be, what is wrong with gray??? It is natural after all!!:-) My hair is light brown/blondish/redish with lovely gray streaks that I like to call, natural highlights.:-) I do not color my hair, all those chemicals, I don’t think so. My husband likes the natural look so my beautiful highlights will just have to stay until they give way to complete gray!:-)
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Ummm, I thought your hair was still blond. Where have I been? Your hair, and you, are beautiful, either way!
I pulled a white one out the other day (accidentally, it just fell out as I ran my fingers through). Happened to be on the phone with Lori when it happened and she assured me that it was blond. Maybe I’m going from brunette to blond?!?
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You know what my natural hair color is, but currently, I’ve colored it a dark burgandy-brown color. It looks anywhere from dark – almost black – brown to purple to bright cherry red… All depends on the lighting and what I’m wearing. I love the variety! :) Also, it’s a wash-out, but it doesn’t actually wash out (b/c it’s darker than my natural color), it just sort of fades to a color closer to my natural color but it keeps the red tint, unlike most red hair color.
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