I'm an open-minded soul, and if I had wanted my hair to be hot pink, I would have been pleased. Many people that I care about enjoy shades such as these and I see nothing wrong with them if that is your personal style. However, the lighter, brighter colours do not do justice to my fair complexion. Instead, I have always preferred the darker shades such as "Deep Dark Auburn" , "Black Cherry" , "Dark Plum," and "Deep Intense Burgundy." These are darker shades but even so they skirt the commonly drawn borders between what is seen as a natural shade and what is seen as "faddish."

My experiences with my hair have been... interesting. I am one of the few, the annoyed, and the unlucky. I have often joked that while others have a bad hair day, I on the other hand have had a bad hair life. It wasn't always that way, though. I was born with the perfect head of hair. It was curly, it was full and it was a very beautiful shade. Black from a distance, it would give a dark cherry glow in the right light. I would have been blissfully content if it had remained that way. However, God apparently created my hair for the purpose of divine amusement.

I love full, shiny hair with long cascading curls. Ironically, by the time I first went to school, my curls left my life forever. My mother insisted that if I cut my hair short during key periods of my life it would become curly once more. Each time I believed her and complied, and the result was nothing more than short, disgusting hair that made me cry. That and long months of waiting as it grew back out.

My straight hair is silky - wonderful to look at but impossible to style. Barrettes, which are intended to control my hair, slide right out. In its natural state, my hair rejects barrettes, ponytail holders, bobby pins, scrunchies, ties and ribbons, and those toothy clamp things. My buns unwind, twists untwist and braids come undone promptly. Gels, mousse, and styling sprays prolong my hairdo for possibly an hour and leave my hair looking dull, dirty or crunchy once it does unravel.

As luck would have it, my hair is amazingly resistant to artificial curls as well. Thus getting acceptable results from the use of hot rollers or curling irons requires gels and high performance hair spray or the curls will go limp within minutes of the hair cooling. With a little luck and an absence of humidity, my 'do" might resist becoming a 'don't" for about 4 hours and there might be a slight hint of curl at the end of the day.

Now, being somewhat connected to a youthful subculture, it was only a matter of time until I ran across "punk" products. These do seem to work somewhat. I mean if it can keep a teenage in a 6 inch straight mowhawk for 8 hrs or more it should help my hair...right? Freeze spray and styling glues and waxes will leave my hair styled all day; however, the price for this is numerous tangles and a prolonged hair washing at the end of every day.

Being insufferably straight and silky is only a third of the problem. It is so fine that you would never know that it is "full" without further inspection. When it is unaltered, it hangs so close to my head that I look like a cancer patient. Mama told me on numerous occasions that my hair needed to be short and layered to avoid being 'weighed down" and would wield the scissors with great flourish. This did not solve the problem in my opinion. It made me look like a half-bald boy with elf ears. Long straight hair looks stringy on me, layered cuts only make my ears stick out more and will pick up any static electricity present within a ten-mile radius. Even in a Cleopatra bob, I looked like a half-bald elf.

Adding to the texture of my hair seemed to be the obvious solution to the problem. I began getting permanent waves at a very young age. The results have been varied. It makes very little difference who applies the wave. If I do it, I have to trim the ends; often a salon can avoid that. But as far as the texture and amount of time the perm lasts, that seems to be left up to the luck of the draw. I only get a good perm often enough to keep me trying. Often my hair is so kinky I look like a Brillo pad or it may not be curly at all, only dry, brittle and damaged. When it does look nice, frequently it will begin to fall out after a few weeks.

Obviously, the texture of my hair is hopeless, but the colour is even worse. I have no idea why my beautiful hair faded and changed colour but I am not at all happy with it. At first, the black faded to a cool brown and I had auburn hair of constantly lightening shades. This was not so bad, though I did miss my dark cherry locks. By college, I could be nearly blonde in summer. Once my body matured, the brown started coming back, but it was no longer a cool shade that matched my skin tone well. Instead, it was a warm golden brown, which caused me to look jaundiced. Currently my hair has a natural shade that makes me think of stinky rat fur.

In order to clear my cool but sallow complexion, I've begun a love/hate relationship with the bottle of hair dye. I remain confused as to why we can put a man on the moon but fail to create a consistent red hair dye. I've been unable to get the same look twice from the same shade, regardless of brand. What is a lovely blackish burgundy one time will be bright red the next. Attempting to recreate my original locks, I have acquired blue black, purple, maroon, plum, hot pink and varying shades of burgundy over the years. Colouring my hair is like a blind date, you never know how it is going to turn out.

Overall, my attempts to engineer my hair have brought it more in line with my own personality. It's moody, hard to manage and ever changing. I guess it could be worse.

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