THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 14, 1995 TAG: 9512140049
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
WHAT IS THAT old joke, ``I spent a year in Newark one week''? Or Buffalo or Scranton or wherever else the jokester happened to dislike? Well, I spent a year as a redhead one week.
The change was prompted by a visit to my daughter and son-in-law's home in West Virginia. It had only been a month since I'd last seen the darlings, and the first words out of my daughter's mouth were, ``Gosh, Mom, your hair's gotten so gray!''
In a month?
That visit made me start a weeks-long personal survey of every woman I knew: Do you think I should dye my hair auburn? Their reactions ranged from ``Are you crazy?'' to ``Hey, why not? Go for it.''
I might not have been so full of trepidation if my hair was just gray or had suddenly turned gray. But, for all my life, I've been a blonde. Granted, the beautiful pale flaxen tresses of childhood gradually turned ``dishwater blonde'' - what an unbecoming description for something that can't be helped - but I'd never had dark hair.
Well, actually, it can be helped. With frosting, streaking, highlighting, whatever term for ``messing with your hair'' is in vogue in a particular decade. I messed with my hair all through the '70s, '80s and this half of the '90s.
But, obviously, I wasn't working fast enough to root out that wirey evidence of my Baby Boomer status.
We do strange and unpredictable things at this stage of our lives: have babies, hike the Appalachian Trail, hire personal trainers. Things to try to hold off, you know - shhh - Middle Age.
Why, I even read a recent column by my colleague Larry Maddry saying he was thinking about coloring his hair, maybe with Kool-Aid. Don't do it, Larry!
The day I dyed my hair red I was in what you'd call ``an impulsive mood.'' I made a quick round of the local supermarket, throwing a video I'd already seen, some expensive shrimp and a bottle of cheap wine into one of those little blue plastic hand baskets.
At the express check-out line, I asked the cashier, ``What color is your hair?'' She said, without a blink, ``Cinnaberry, by Clairol. Do you have your gold card with you?'' I left the supermarket and went directly to the drug store across the street.
I located Cinnaberry, by Clairol, sped to the register and said to the teenaged check-out clerk, ``Quick, ring this up before I lose my nerve.'' She, as if the voice of experience, asked: ``Do you have anyone to help you with this? It can get pretty messy.''
Oh no, now someone has to know I'm doing this. I wanted to surprise everyone, including my husband, who was home sleeping away the afternoon because he had worked the midnight shift the night before.
Bottom line: I called my mother, pleading: ``You have to come over here right now. I neeeeed you.'' And she came, bringing my 11-year-old nephew, who was visiting her. Mom dyed my hair Cinnaberry, by Clairol, at the kitchen table, keeping me away from all the mirrors in the house.
She kept saying, ``It's RED, all right'' and laughing hysterically. My nephew was staring at my head, his mouth hanging open. When I said, ``What!'' he sort of backed up, saying, ``Nothing, it's just kind of scary, that's all.''
Mom rinsed my hair, and I dried it with a blow dryer, head down. When I went into the bathroom, flipped my hair up and saw it in the mirror for the first time, I screamed, ``Oh, my god!'' about six times before my husband threw open the bedroom door. He had been sleeping nude.
I think it was a combination of seeing my red hair and seeing my mother at the same time that made him yell back, ``Oh, my god!''
So there were the four of us - my husband, my mother, my nephew and I - all hysterical for different reasons. My husband put on some clothes and came out of the bedroom, saying: ``What's going on? I thought you were hurt.''
``I AM!'' I screamed. ``I'm mortified! I wanted to surprise you.''
``Oh, I'm surprised, all right,'' he said. I half expected him to yell, ``Loo-cie!'' because, at that moment, I sure reminded myself of Lucille Ball.
And Mom threw in her helpful, ``Well, the box says it comes out in 24 shampoos. If you wash it twice a day for 12 days, it should all be gone.''
That was two weeks ago. Reactions at work and the university where I am a graduate student ranged from ``It takes off years'' to ``It's not that bad'' to ``When you asked me before, I told you not to mess with your hair.''
I tried, but I just can't get used to being a redhead. All my identification says I'm a blonde, I think blonde, my children are blondes and, when I'm going to meet and interview people who don't know me, I describe myself as being ``tall, with long blond hair.''
I've washed my hair about eight times, even tried what's supposed to be the strongest shampoo on the market, but I'm still a redhead. Only now I'm a redhead with gray roots. Yuk!
I guess the next step is to talk with my hairdresser, the one who, when I called her the first time and said, ``I'm thinking about having you dye my hair red,'' flatly refused to do it.
``No, it won't look good,'' she said. ``You don't have the right coloring for it. And, besides, it's too much to keep up. Just come in and we'll highlight it again.''
OK, she was right on all counts. I'll just go in and have her highlight it again. But first I have to get rid of this red. by CNB