Optical Illusion????
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free skin care · Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:41 pm

I think I ask WHY too much but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. Bear with me - long winded.

I have naturally blonde hair, the shades of which have changed in the "opposite" way from the norm. Many blondes start as light blondes and gradually darken over the years. I started as a dark blonde, which lightened gradually through my late 20's, and now has gone gradually darker over the last 5 years. Hoping to stem the tide of age, and hearing that as you age, you should go lighter, I've been adding light blonde highlights with full head foils. One day recently, I woke up and decided that I was looking too "Barbie." I just didn't feel "classy." I tried a new stylist today and here's the deal. She found my natural color somewhere in the back of my head (took a while...) and strategically placed foils of that color through the top portion of my hair. Then she added a few lighter foils at the very top for contrast. WELL ... aside from recreating my exact hair color and streaks after a day at the beach when I was ten years old, I swear this woman took five years off my face.

Why is this?

Is it because I went back to where I should be... a sign from the powers-that-be that hair color changes happen for a reason?

Is it that it's a myth to go lighter as you age?

Is it because, perhaps, the light blonde was contrasting too heavily with my skin tone and "aging" me?

Am I losing my mind?

There could never be a big enough tip for this stylist. Aside from giving me a dip into the fountain of youth, she didn't even push any products on me!

free skin care · Thu Oct 06, 2005 6:52 pm

Wow! LandB! Treasure your hair stylist! I cannot answer your q's on why, but I experienced the same phenomena. Until the last five years, my natural hair color was a darker copper red. My Mom's was the exact same color, and her hair turned into a brownish color as she got older. My hair color has, during the last five years, turned strawberry blonde. Well, I call it strawberry, because I still see red in it. But people who didn't know me before, classify me as a blonde...and people that did know me, ask me where my red hair went, and are shocked that it's not blonde out of a bottle.

I do understand your feeling that your hair is too light. I feel extremely washed out with my light colored hair, and think about going darker at times. I miss my red hair. I am grateful, however, that my gray hair does blend pretty well into the "blonde" and doesn't look gray, but more of a sandy blonde mixed in, so it does look like I have highlights.

Enjoy your new younger, vibrant look!

free skin care · Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:52 am

I glad you brought this up, I was due to go to the hairdressers last month and suffered a crises, whether to have my usual blonde look.
I have naturally golden blonde hair which I have dyed a much cooler light blonde.

Now I came across an article in 'Woman & Home' that said if you look too pale then your hair has been dyed too light. I always needed to warm my complexion up with bronzer or blusher.

I also have green eyes like you and it has only been since I have long roots showing through that people have been commenting that they never noticed how green my eyes were.
The article pointed out that you have found the best hair colour when people start to complement you on your eye colour.
So I too need to go darker.

I also started looking at magazine pictures and noticed that the majority of light blondes that have had highlights or colour and that look really good have blue or brown eyes.

Anyway my 2 pence worth Very Happy

free skin care · Fri Oct 07, 2005 9:43 am

Rosebud, I think you hit the nail on the head about the eyes.

When I was in my "Barbie" phase, I was obsessed with keeping my eyebrows very thin... and in retrospect, I think it was to minimize the color contrast with my hair but, more importantly, because I felt like my eyes weren't "standing out" like they normally did. I am 1/2 Italian, 1/4 Polish, and 1/4 French Canadian and with all that heritage came large eyes with "heavy" eyelids. I think over-kill blonde took over my best feature.

Good luck with your next trip to the stylist. Let us know how beautiful you look!

free skin care · Fri Oct 07, 2005 10:12 am

I've decided to just grow it all out, my roots are really long now, they stylist last coloured my hair in January

but she did it so that when it started to grow out I would not get that ring effect, it kind of blends in.
I'm hanging on in there until just before Christmas, but I'm lucky because of my age (I look a lot younger than 23) I can pull off that studenty look Laughing

I think the hardest part is when the other half says "but I like you blonde", by the time I come to go, anything will look better than the extra long roots Wink

.....he pays you see Bad Grin

free skin care · Fri Oct 07, 2005 10:59 am

LandB -- I find that as a general rule, people look best with their natural color. It is possible to dye your hair lighter and look better (I have), but the TONE of the color is very important. It must go with your skin tone and eye color or it will look terrible!

Going lighter as you age is a natural process. Most people get gray hair and the lighter shade is much easier on the face. Dark hair on an older face is much too harsh. I am naturally dark haired, and even in my 20s my hair is naturally lighter than when I was a teenager, it just sort of 'faded'. Bottom line is I think your lighter blonde was either too light for you and/or the wrong shade.

Congratulations on your 'new' look. Wink

free skin care · Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:06 pm

Hope this helps-
here I go on another tangent.
I am 99% sure this is why your colour changes as you age but am open to be corrected.

All human hair is made of keratin protein.(duh)
The natural colour of keratin protein is a pale, whitish yellow- for all of us.

My hair is naturally almost black, but I can lighten it to that colour (I did- it was not pretty) because as the lightener strips the brown and black pigment I inherited from my parents, the natural colour of the keratin protein is revealed. Hence, the term "bleach"- it strips colour out, but does not actually dye the hair itself. The blond I saw, (after passing out and eating a gallon of ice cream and praying) was just the natural colour of human hair.
EDS member 2 has red hair because she inherited red pigment.
EDS member 3 has light brown hair because she inherited brown pigment, but not as much as I did- so her brown is lighter than mine.
The base of all natural colours are red, brown, black and yellow. These 4 combine to make the colour you naturally have, and all the variations between us (and between strands on one head).

When you were a little girl (or baby), you may have had "white blond" hair. A lot of natural blondes do. As you aged, your hair darkened as the natural pigment in your genes developed. Time passes, and many blond kids grow into brunette (or brunett-ish) adults. And, as, more time passes the pigment that "activated" and turned your infant platinum into deep blonde begins to go dormant (everything does with time), so i am guessing that you were seeing your natural colour genes begin to shut down, showing the actually colour of human hair- or, the lightening of your twenties could have just been damage-from the sun, processes, heat appliances or the things mentioned above. Did you change anything in your hair routine? Or move to a different climate?

Finally, it is possible, that, your colour genes were becoming dormant in your twenties and are "re-activating" in your thirties- I have heard this happening to people who take a lot of antioxidant supplements (IIRC CoQ10 is a big one for restoring "youth" hair).

If I am wrong, I will embarassed enough to finish off another tub of ice cream, so be gentle experts!

free skin care · Fri Oct 28, 2005 10:38 pm

Hmm, that's a very intriguing theory product_junkie Think

Nothing to be embarassed about at all! Now pass me that tub of ice cream Laughing

Re natural hair color, I remember reading an article once about Cindy Crawford being inspired to return to the hair color she had as a child because of how beautiful she thought her daughter's hair looked. She said she was amazed at how the color change made her look younger and brightened her complexion.

free skin care · Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:13 pm

Product_junkie, I don't know what the experts will say, but I'm impressed at your effort and reasoning! Plus, you know the healing powers of ice cream, so who cares if you're right about my hair?! Laughing

Your post made me laugh because you mentioned whether I had that white-blonde hair as a baby/small child. Well, I was actually bald as a cue ball until about 2 years old, when my hair follicles exploded and gave me more hair than I can handle. I have to have it thinned when cut.

My mother would dress me head to toe and pink and, to no avail, she would be complimented on what a beautiful baby boy she had! She even resorted to taping, yes, taping, a pink bow to one tiny little tuft of hair that eventually grew on the top of my head. It was before the days when you could buy those little headbands for babies. I look back at my baby pictures and just shake my head at how absurd I looked. Rolling Eyes

free skin care · Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:50 am

LandB wrote:

My mother would dress me head to toe and pink and, to no avail, she would be complimented on what a beautiful baby boy she had! She even resorted to taping, yes, taping, a pink bow to one tiny little tuft of hair that eventually grew on the top of my head. It was before the days when you could buy those little headbands for babies. I look back at my baby pictures and just shake my head at how absurd I looked. Rolling Eyes

I bet you absolutely adorable.... i wanna see those pictures Laughing

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