The Blonde Ambition

Whilst I was in Raglan, my (rather straight-laced) friend came back to the hostel one day sporting a mohawk. This started my mind on a thought process: Why had he got this mohawk? Because he was travelling and it didn’t matter what he looked like. So why am I still sporting the same hair colour that I’ve had all my life? I’ve always thought about going blonde, but never had the balls to actually do it, as I was a professional back in England, and (more or less) cared about the way I looked. But now I was travelling, sometimes having to go days without a shower - so vanity obviously wasn’t a problem anymore. I didn’t have any meetings or presentations or anything else that I had to look smart for. So I thought… why not?! This journey is all about having ‘no regrets’, after all! I’d often thought that if I got to 50 and had never gone blonde that I’d regret it, so what was stopping me now?? Nothing.

So I booked into a salon in Nelson, and opted for a ‘whole head foil’, which, as you can see from the pic below, literally means that they bleach individual parts of your hair and then wrap it in foil for 40 minutes for the bleach to lighten your hair. My hairdresser, Louise, had chosen the colours for me that she thought would be best. ‘She’s the hairdresser and knows best!’, I thought.

Whilst I was sat in the salon, I’d realised that it wasn’t as blonde as I’d wanted, and It didn’t really look all that good. Ah cr*p. So 2 ½ hours after I’d entered, I left the salon. My friends were waiting outside, and as I’d imagined, the reaction wasn’t particularly enthralling. Ah well – at least I’d done it and knew what I’d look like as a blonde – even if it wasn’t what I’d hoped. So the next day I went on the Abel Tasman tramp (see next blog post). Having not looked in the mirror for 3 days, when I came back I was shocked to actually look at the state of my hair. Although I’d only had it done 4 days previously, some of the roots looked as though there was about 3 weeks’ worth of re-growth. The colour was really stripy, with significant contrasts between the blonde and my natural hair colour (which she’d left in). I wasn’t happy. Coupled with my dark eyebrows, I honestly felt like a bit of a tramp, and was embarrassed by the state of it. I’d done a 3 day tramp, looking like a tramp. The pic below doesn't particularly show the colour, but you can see the huge dark patch of roots at the front... 

So I went back to the salon the next day and complained. They took one look at it, agreed that it wasn’t a very good job and agreed to do it again for me for free. Thank god!! I also enquired about dying my eyebrows lighter, and was told that lightening eyebrows often turns them orange. OK! I’m fine with dark eyebrows then!! So I went through another 2 hour process, this time with Paula, an Irish girl on a working holiday visa herself. She was really nice, and really took the time to ask what my expectations were, and what I didn’t like about my hair at the moment. She full-head foiled my hair again, this time adding more blonde, and it turned out much better! It wasn’t a brassy look – just a natural looking blonde. Perfect. I was really happy, and although you could still see some of the bad roots from the previous job (she’d left some of the old hair colouring in – like the pervious foiling), it wasn’t bad. I walked out of there feeling pretty good - I’ve now been a ‘proper’ blonde for 3 days, and I love it! J