Hair disasters

Owlhaven has had a bad hair weekend. I know the feeling. I remember when I was a student and babysat for a leading hairdresser. He always said "Come in and let me do you hair for you". He did all the hair in magazines and cost the earth to go to, so I thought go for it. Too good a chance to miss. Hah. He decided that my red hair could do with henna. You do not want to know the result. In the salon, with dimmed light, it looked ...um...shiny. In the bright african sunlight it blinded you on the spot. It was neon orange. My life was clearly over. I had to wear sunglasses to do it, and took to wearing scarves day and night. It is amazing how creative scarf wearing makes you. I did survive. Just. But it took 3 months of daily scrubbing to dim the hue.

And then there was the time Diana asked me to do her highlights. I did point out that I knew nothing about highlights and could not be held responsible for the result. She begged. I am a good mother. I did the highlights. Now have you ever seen anything so stupid as that little dolly brush thingy they tell you to squeeze the stuff onto? Well, I did her hair, and my daughter said "you need to get closer to my scalp. So I did what any intelligent mother would do, and squeezed a little blob onto the required places. (I am waiting to see what she comments here) It was a triumph. Except that she had little circles all over her head. And they grew down as her hair grew, in, as she called it, her dalmation look. Spotted highlights. "Don't worry mum, I am tall. No-one will notice, except for everyone on the top of doubledecker busses, every lorry driver, every man I know, everyone on escalators, and everyone looking out of a window. I will survive the humiliation of looking like a dalmation." I told her to go to a salon and get it rescued. The hairdresser took one look, and said "Who has been messing with your hair?". Sigh. Mothers can only try. And I don't think her psyche was ruined for life somehow. Hats are always good.