New Hair, New Fashion Unicorn?

The power of hair has always amazed me.  If you change your hair, you can change your life.  I know that sounds dramatic, but it seems to me that every different hair color/style I've had has marked a new era. As a mousy brunette in the beginning of high school, I resented my appearance.  I felt disgusting, especially compared to my perfect, platinum blonde older sister, Alissa.  All the boys at school would pay no attention to me unless they wanted to express their love for my sister.  The frizzy grossness of my hair didn't help the horrible color.  Slowly but surely, I started making the rough journey to blonde.  Days were spent at the pool spraying my hair with lemon juice to get highlights.  Then, one day, my sister suggested that we break out the bleach.  It was the morning of Homecoming, my sophomore year of high school.  We sat in my mom's bathroom, and Alissa sectioned off my hair and painted bleach over every little part.  I swear, after that day, I was a different person.  

When I was platinum blonde, I felt more girly.  I even felt (dare I say) hot.  Blonde brought attention from boys.  For once, guys were interested in me. Pink was the main color in my wardrobe, and often I felt like a Barbie doll.  For the first time, I had confidence.  Also, sometimes I felt way too sexy for my own good.  Bear in mind, I was 16.  Modeling gigs came my way, which was always a dream of mine.  Finally, I was good enough.  Blonde only lasted so long, though, due to the harmful effects of bleach.  I remember my grandma begging me to go to the salon and get my hair professionally done and dyed back to brown.  She offered to pay for the dye job, and after A LOT of contemplating the effects (would I still be pretty as a brunette? ) I went through with it.

My confidence didn't disappear when the blonde did.  I went to school and everyone was so shocked.  No one could believe that I went through with going back to brown.  I experienced many awkward moments, saying hi to people in the halls and having them not recognizing me.  Eventually, everyone got used to it, and many told me that I looked better this way than I did blonde.  I had imagined going to junior prom a blonde, but I ended up going as brunette.  Somehow, I still felt beautiful.  My biggest fear did not become a reality.  I wasn't horrible as a brunette.  

Me being me, brown didn't last too long.  I needed something more extreme.  That's when I picked up a box of black dye from the drugstore.  It wasn't as dramatic of a change as the previous one was, but I still felt different.  Now I was dark, edgy, and sexy.  I felt tougher, and it just felt right.  Sometimes I forgot that my hair wasn't actually naturally black.  Of course, during the black hair phase, I shaved half of my head, causing friends and family to believe that I was going off the deep end.  Really, it was just a part of the style evolution.  This hair matched me.  Black lasted for the longest time of all my hair phases.  Then, a couple days ago, the next phase commenced.

I sat in a chair at Fringe Salon in SoHo with bleach all over my hair.  The smell and the feeling reminded me of years ago when I was platinum.  This time, though, the end goal wasn't blonde; It was red.  I thought that I was going to have black hair for the rest of my life.  I knew it worked well on me, and it was easy enough to maintain myself.  But, a couple weeks ago, I decided that I should take a chance and go red, as it was something I always talked about doing, but I never knew if it would really happen. 

Here I am now.  It's only two days into the redhead era, and I don't know how long it will last for. Every time I look in the mirror, I feel a little surprised, because I'm not used to it yet.  Sometimes I feel like it's just my old Halloween wig.  Perhaps the most surprising part of this, though, is how I feel about myself.  Before I had validation from anyone (guys or girls), I had validation from myself.  I looked in the mirror while the hair stylist blew my freshly red locks dry, I and couldn't stop smiling.  I liked what I saw, and that was all the validation I needed.  

Forever 21 dress, Betsey Johnson tights, H&M over the knee socks & shoes, Jawbreaking necklace