Bad Hair Blues

I have bad hair. I mean, really bad, over-processed, dry hair. Which is now turning prematurely gray. (Not exactly prematurely, but hey, cut me some slack.)

This means, I can’t just let it go, leave it alone and let it grow out the healthy way. I’ll end up looking like Barbara Bush. Or Anderson Cooper.

What makes this even worse is that my day job is in Beverly Hills, on Rodeo Drive, in fact. Where I am surrounded by dozens and dozens of industry types, actresses, executives and models, all sporting their perfect silky golden or amber tresses. (For the record guys, nobody is born with hair like that.) I tell myself that these goddess-like locks are actually thousand dollar hair extensions purchased at Umberto, Giuseppe, or Cristophe Salon.

This doesn’t help my plight, however.

Over the past 20 years, I have changed the color of my hair the way women change nail polish. It started with the theater.

I got the lead role in a play, and this character was known for her long black hair. Was I content to just go purchase a black wig? Of course not. I had to dye my hair black. This way, the roots of my hair would blend in with the synthetic wig the theater purchased, and the hair would look seamless. The critics would be truly impressed – no, transcended - by my perfect black hair. (Maybe they were. I did win a Dramalogue Award for that show.)

However, I didn’t realize when I applied the store bought semi-permanent dye that leaving it in my hair for 2 hours might actually lock it in for life. My mother came to town to see me in the play and told me I looked like a witch on Halloween.

After fruitless bleaching and treating, it took 3 years for the Sharpie pen black in my hair to finally grow out, at which point my hair was so dry from all the treatments, I should have just shaved my head.

A few years later, I recorded an album. The producers hired a marketing girl who thought it would be really great if I were a redhead. It would set me apart from everyone else. Sure, why not? I thought. I’d never done red before.

What I didn’t know is that once you dye your hair red, you have to constantly go back to the salon to have it “refreshed” so that you don’t end up looking like a rusty nail. (This involved lifting the base tone a few shades and then adding color.)

6 or 7 “refreshments” later, my hair now resembled brassy barbed wire. The only place to go from here was blonde. If I tried to return to brunette (which I think was my original hair color – I honestly don’t remember), the brassy undertones would remain. So blonde it was.

That particular transformation was a bit shocking. I remember going to a temp job at a law firm the next day, and the attorney I was working for didn’t recognize me. When he finally did, he started laughing, and that’s never a good sign.

I spent the next few years trying to find a balance between blonde and brown, and I think I finally reached it for a glorious 2 or 3 years. Then the gray (white, actually) started to appear.

At first I wasn’t sure what those albino streaks were. I fantasized that my hair was actually turning blonde. Or maybe the sun by the lake that summer simply bleached my hair. I ignored it.

Until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

So now, every 5 weeks, it’s back to the hair salon, to get my “roots done”, hoping that the color matches the rest of my hair. Which it rarely does. And every couple of months, I have to add highlights, so my hair won’t look like a one-tone Chevrolet.

God, it’s endless.

This morning, I decided to wash my hair and let it air dry naturally, just leave it alone, let the September air do its magic.

You really don’t want to see what I look like right now.