After I burned my scalp in May, I immediately wanted my old hair back. It was the last straw. I hated how light my hair was, hated how dry and completely damaged it was, and I hated my tan skin and platinum look. But you can’t go back in time, so I knew I would need to wait several months before I tried to deal with my roots.

Kay enjoyed the summer because he loved the blonde, even if I wouldn’t let him run his fingers through my hair anymore for fear of snapping more hair off. But after the Adriatic Sea destroyed my hair in Montenegro, I wanted to end this hot mess, so with great trepidation, I dragged myself into a salon to explain my mess and schedule a long Saturday appointment.

I wanted to be very clear even in German that I wanted to go back to my natural color, which is why I freaked out a bit when the hairdresser brought out bleach and started bleaching my roots as we started. NOOOOO. “But I want BROWN hair!!!” I told her. She assured me we would do that, but she wanted to bleach the roots so that everything would be uniform.Still, I was not happy that I waited the whole summer and several weeks of icky roots to fix my hair professionally, only to have my scalp suffering through bleach again. It wasn’t terrible, but as they were washing it out, it really started burning on my lower scalp and the next day I noticed scabbing again like when I burned my scalp.

It might be that I burned my scalp enough that it will always react this way to bleach in the future, but after this whole ordeal is over, I think I will go natural for a good, long time.I was also not a happy camper because I’d slept on my neck wrong, and it actually was really painful to turn my head left or right or look upward, which made getting my head in and out of the washing basin a bitch.

After the bleach, she put on the layer of orange/red that I was expecting. Here, she tried to explain it not to freak me out, but I knew she would have to put this undertone color on to give the brown a base to hold on to. Without the orange color underneath, it’s likely that brown on top of blonde hair turns grey or greenish. No thanks!

After the orange was done, the stylist assistant washed it out and I begged him to be gentle with my hair as he started combing it. I told him how my hair broke off very short on holiday and he tried to brush it off that they were baby hairs by my face, but baby hairs don’t extend that far back and I knew it was likely all my hair would rip off if he would continue abusing it.I sent the picture to Kay and he made some Joker references. I had tried to warn him that if my hair didn’t turn out well, I would have to cut most or all of it away. It was that damaged. But he was crossing his fingers that this would not be the case.

Next up it was time for brown.

The hairdresser was funny. She apologized that she kept switching to High German instead of speaking Swiss German to me. She asked if I was really sure I wanted to go dark. Yes. Natural. That’s the point. Maybe a medium blonde instead? NOPE. Brown. Please. So brown it was…After all the dying, we surveyed the damage. Some of the hair was so damaged that even the orange layer didn’t help it take the dye. It was too porous and wash washing out.

We had discussed styles beforehand and I had said that I wanted a shorter bob, but we agreed that at this point, a longer pixie would be better to cut more of the damaged hair off. The hairdresser was really excited to cut so much because it’s more fun for her than always trimming people’s hair. We had agreed that she would cut my hair to part it on the other side, but she got a little snip happy. While I’d said I want the long part to come down to my nose, she cut an extra 6cm off, and now when I part on the other side, it will only come down to my eyebrows, which is quite short for me!The hairdresser also loved how “cool” I was. She kept saying how surprised she was with how calm and relaxed I was while she hacked my hair off. Other people would gasp or cry she said, but nothing fazed me. Go dark, go short. It’s just hair… and if she’s a little scissor happy, there’s nothing I can do once she cuts a section off.

It’s not exactly the cut I imagined, but I am enjoying how short it is because I haven’t had hair this short since I was six for fear of being asked if I am a boy again. And it’s just hair, it will grow back.

I’m so happy to be brunette again!