Illustration by Scott Drummond
From bland to blonde and back again By Jennifer Voldness, Jayplaywriter
I was about to be transformed. The colorist was grinning from ear to ear. "You look fantastic," she told me. I couldn't wait any longer. She spun me around. I had closed my eyes so tightly in anticipation of
this moment I almost forgot to open them. But I did.
Although my expectations were likely too high, I had hoped to emerge from the chair a beautiful blonde swan. Instead, I was still an ugly duckling with subtle, caramel-streaked feathers.
I can trace my blonde longing all the way back to my earliest memories of playing make-believe—specifically, playing princesses. Because I was plagued with mahogany-colored hair, my blonde friends always
By Jennifer Voldness
Jayplay writer
stuck me with Snow White. They, however,
had their pick of Sleeping Beauty (by far the
prettiest of the princesses), Cinderella and
Rapunzel. Not to knock Snow White, but
besides her annoying voice, she's clearly
the least attractive.
And then I had my mother as a point of reference. To me, she was the epitome of blonde beauty. Her hair was not naturally light, but hair can be like breasts; most of
the time fake looks a heck of a lot better than natural. She knew I had always wanted to dye my hair and told me to wait for a while because, "once you start you can never stop." But I didn't care. I couldn't
wait to be blonde. I wanted to be someone else. Middle school only added to my longing. My best friends were the prettiest girls in the school and most were blondes. The boys swarmed around them like bees. I wasn't so appealing. The climax of my blonde obsession came at the end of eighth grade when my best friend and I had a crush on the
media and I had a crust on the same boy. She had always been the "it" girl at the lunch table and I wanted so badly to be noticed just once. When my dreamboat called
me one Tuesday night, I was overjoyed. Right when I was sure he was going to ask me out, he dropped the bomb: did I think my friend would go out with him? My 14-year-old heart broke.
By ninth grade I was ready to be blonde. Since I was only 15, my mother and I agreed that I would get a few highlights at first. All I could think about was how I was going to look like Grace Kelly. Obviously
that didn't happen. Though disappointed, my resolve was strong. I waited a few months and returned to the chair. This time I wanted a full highlight—none of this partial business. I was more pleased with the result this time. I still had some brown left in my hair, but it was a vast improvement to my earlier looks.
I was surprised at the reaction my new tint aroused. My girlfriends, although complementary, made a point to tell me how much they had liked my natural color. I ignored their feedback. Guys barely noticed a change — something I would come to regard later as their lack of aesthetic observational skills but at the time, I was hurt and confused. During high school my hair got lighter but things pretty much stayed as they always had. Most boys looked past me to see who the gorgeous blonde behind me was, and the ones who did like me weren't the right ones.
When I got to college I knew it would be impossible to keep up my $130 bi-monthly highlighting regimen so I decided to go back to my roots. I went to the salon at the start of my freshman year and had my colorist dye me back to normal. When I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized myself. I felt ugly and plain again.
College was different than I anticipated. I found out there are hoards of guys who will talk to just about any girl, and I actually began to get attention from the guys I liked. I made friends with a new group of beautiful blonde girls — and brunettes and redheads as well. I fell in love with school, the connections I was making and the experiences I was having. Somewhere in the course of my first semester of higher education, I forgot to hate how I looked. In fact, I actually started to appreciate my dark hair. For one thing, my normal color actually matched my eyebrows and I definitely didn't miss the high maintenance of being blonde.
Since my freshman year, I have occasionally lightened my hair during a holiday break or the summer, but never with the same desperate longing to be someone else. It took me a long time to realize that it wasn't my friends' hair color that got them noticed — it was their confidence. I may not have complete self-assurance, but I'm learning. I may never be Sleeping Beauty, but I can see now that Snow White isn't so bad.
10.21.04 Jayplay
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