Roots
Upon deciding to hike for 6 months I did not take into account how it might effect every single area of my life. Even down to the roots of my hair. Since 2002 I’ve been avidly coloring my hair. I’ve had about every shade of red in the color spectrum as well as black, brown, blonde, and a mix of other colors. Here is a small sampling of the colors I’ve had over the past four years:
Red with blonde streaks.
Black.
Medium red.
Dark red/brown.
Strawberry blonde.
Blonde.
Yes, I like to spell blonde with an “e”. Now, in the past eight years I have not gone without dyeing my hair for more than 12 weeks. Even that is pushing it. So for the multi-month hike I decided there were three options:
- Dye my hair on the trail. Really it’s not an outlandish idea, on a zero day in a town I could make due with drug store blonde and just hit the roots up. A great plan!
- Let my hair grow and not care about the roots…WAIT!!!! That is not an option!!! I may end up really stinking terribly, but I’m not going wallow so low as to let people see 5 months worth of root growth.
- Dye my hair to nearly match my roots. Going back to natural isn’t a bad idea, maybe it would help me quit my addiction to hair dye (even though I’m not very fond of my light brown/dark blonde-ish natural hair color).
When some heard of plan numero uno they rolled their eyes and said, “You’re going to be in the woods! Who cares about roots? No one is going to see you!” “I don’t care, I’ll know that they are there, it will be disgusting!” I would wail back. I also had never gone so long without switching colors, I had gone almost 1.5 years as a blonde and I was enjoying it. But then, a thought did pop into my mind. I had always wanted to dye my hair an outlandish color, but it wouldn’t work unless I had a blonde or a bleached base. I had that! I am not allowed to have weird colored hair at the workplace, but starting September 25th I was taking off 6 weeks to go work on a film in North Carolina. And the only thing that would cover the crazy color would be a darker color, close to my root color. So, the only way to make myself happy about going back natural was to treat myself to some blue hair first. So that’s just what I did.
Over the six weeks it began to fade, but that made it perfect for covering up…now that I have to go back to slinging spaghetti next week.
The hair issue is now solved, hopefully no visible roots or hair dyeing on this trip…but toe nail polish is a whole other issue.
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