Too Long to be Apart

I knew there was a good reason why I promised to write this at least every other day; it is far too difficult to come back after a week and try to summarize everything I have been doing in one coherent blog. My aim for this blog is to write something widely interesting and a short bullet point diary of things I did over the week does seems tedious to me so I am going to avoid attempting a quick summary and write about today, now, this moment. Well, I am allowing myself to reflect upon things that have happened, but as they become relevant to my current topic of conversation as opposed to rattling out a long list.
I have been away in London, which I summarized briefly and without much finesse in my last blog, and then I was in Glasgow for a week in which I made sure to peruse the shops, the Kelvingrove Gallery, walk across the city, sample the restaurants, check out a couple of films, go to a music gig and of course have a drink or two in the endless amount of bars and go dancing. Although I love Edinburgh and still maintain that is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to, Glasgow is much more beautiful than I thought and there is always something to do there. I was there for only a week and I was kept busy every day.

Now I am back with a few new items in my wardrobe, much less pennies in my pocket and a new and final term of my University degree. Exciting. So exciting, in fact, that I feel the need to celebrate it with a radical change of hair colour. OK, that is not why I want to dye my hair, I have wanted to dye it for a long time, but I have been uncertain as I have my natural hair colour at the moment for the first time in almost 8 years, and I like it. However, I also like change. I had also just been growing my hair and after Christmas I cut it short at the back and left the front long as it is in my profile photo. I like this style and I think I might go back to get it even shorter at the back and more of a quirky cut. I prefer to wait until I go back to Edinburgh and go to my hairdresser Kipps who works at Cheynes on York Place. I am always wary about going to new hairdressers, because for some I might be a dream come true, but others their worst nightmare. I never know what I want and feel the most comfortable telling whoever it is do be creative and exciting and do whatever they want. This makes some hairdressers nervous and they insist that I pick a picture from a magazine to inspire me, but I don't know what to pick because most of the hair in the pictures has been styled, often doesn't work on fine hair and might not suit my face shape. These are things that a hairdresser should know about and it is why it should be perfectly reasonable to expect a senior creative director to be let loose on my hair. Kipps is one of those hairdressers who takes this task and revels in it. He did not actually cut my hair this time as he was on holiday, a woman called Kirsty did who is also a senior creative director and I would highly recommend her although I must be loyal to Kipps. He is always excited by the prospect of being allowed to do whatever he likes and every time I come away satisfied.
I became addicted to bizarre haircuts when I went to my mums hairdresser Rob who no longer works there when I was 14. He was very quirky and straight away cut it in an asymmetrical style. At that age I have to admit I didn't quite appreciate it as I did not have the confidence, but I know it grows out and that is something I have had to tell myself when I am not entirely sure about some of the "interesting" haircuts I have had. After Rob left I was left with a regular hairdresser for a period and expanded on my hair dying, from semi-permanent reds to bleaching, pink, red, purple, and black and even braided my hair with black, purple and red wool which defined my gothic teens.

At one stage when I was 19 I had normal, if not very dry, red/blond/brown hair and it was a reasonable length and I was working in a restaurant in Edinburgh when a hairdresser asked if I wanted to model for a Vidal Saloon hair competition the whole company partakes in. It meant a free cut and colour and something interesting so I agreed. Biggest hair mistake of my life, more of a mistake than when I accidentally died my hair grey because at least I could fix that.
There was a girl for each hairdresser and one morning we all turned up to have our hair cut and died under the supervision of two established hairdressers from England. This was the most unprofessional hair cut I have ever had. She did not cut my hair at all how she told me she would and I had one side very long which was fine and the other short and square like an army boy in the 1930's. So this was not to my taste, but that was not the main problem. She bleached my hair in order to dye the short section a purple tint of blond and the longer section a red tint of blond. Now bleach always tingles a little bit, sometimes even stings, but I have bleached my hair many times before and when this was hurting I knew I had to say something. It was dismissed as fine, despite the fact it clearly was not and I could feel a drip of bleach burning into the back of my neck. This is not good for anyone's skin, and I have mild to sometimes terrible eczema. When she washed it out my scalp was red raw and the skin on my neck had flared up to an unbearable rash. What was the reaction I received? Comfort? An apology? No. The senior, supervising hairdressers laughing at me because I looked like an albino. Perhaps a humorous situation for an observer I do not doubt it, but certainly not a professional one. I was not only in a lot of pain, but totally humiliated. Then she had to finish cutting the already hideous hairstyle and after having been there for around 6 hours she cut my ear. I was not impressed. At all. After this horrible experience I was left with a disgusting haircut so as soon as the photos were taken two days after (another 6 hours wait) I made an appointment to have my hair fixed as best I could. I was given Kipps who did not just make it better, he actually made a hair cut I actually loved; it was a pixie crop with a few long pieces. So he is my hairdresser and I will wait until I get home before I get my hair cut again.
I have not revealed the colour of my hair to be. I am going to dye it red and then when it begins to fade, orange, so it becomes a fiery orange red. I have never had it orange before and although many of my friends have reservations about the whole concept I have a strong feeling it will look fantastic. There is a fantastic brand of dyes sold at Superdrug although I can't seem to find them on the website. They have pink, red, purple and blond which go straight to brilliant bright colours and don't require any bleaching as they have bleach in the product which is wonderful. This is why I am dying it red first as I was going to go straight to orange, but trying to bleach it perfectly is very difficult and a problem that can easily be avoided by using this Superdrug product. Finding an orange colour was very difficult. I have used Rusk Scream before when dying my hair pink, but I could only seem to find it in US stores online and they only had one orange colour which didn't look too good. I did a Google search for bright hair dyes in the UK and was presented with a brand called Special Effects which has a wonderful range of bright hair colours. I bought mine on the website beeunique as the Special Effects website was out of stock in the colour I wanted. They have two oranges, 'Napalm Orange' and 'Hi-Octane Orange'. The latter is more of a red orange, which is what I wanted, but there pure orange was a fantastically bright and exciting colour and as I am dying it over red anyway I opted for that one. I am very excited. I am going to buy the red today and should hopefully receive the orange in time to go over that colour and be very shiny in the sun.