A letter to hairdressers: Stop telling me not to box dye my hair

OPINION 

You’ll be glad to know I’ve transformed from a natural brunette goddess, to a red-tinted babe. But my hairdresser is not on board.  

I’d had the same brown hair for 20 years before my best friend and I went to The Warehouse and bought two boxes of $7.50 Revlon dye, shade 31, dark auburn.  

The middle-aged woman on the box looked like Mrs Incredible, with her dark auburn hair over one eye and swooshed to the side.  

We set up shop in my bestie's living room with an old towel, a chair from the side of the road and Gilmore Girls playing.  

I made sure to constantly question her intelligence by asking if she was getting all my roots. 

After half an hour of my scalp stinging, I washed the dye out and was left with a cute red tint. It was just enough of a change to make life feel exciting, but not enough that I looked like Ronald McDonald.  

Not a lot of people noticed I had dyed my hair, but you know who did? My hairdresser.  

I don’t go to the hairdresser very much because it's so expensive. I go when I need a pick-me-up.  

I’m used to hairdressers complimenting my luscious, thick hair and asking if the colour is all natural.  

This time, I was not welcomed with compliments but with huffs and puffs about my “forever ruined hair”.  

“Why would you do that to your hair? Do you know it's the same dye used on our clothes,” the hairdresser said, gesturing to his black T-shirt.  

I’m quite a blunt person so I frankly said, “I don’t care”. Because hair grows back. I told him that the colour was already fading, and it looked pretty similar to my natural hair.  

He shook his head and gave me a good old lecture - just when I was trying to have a break from uni.  

He said if I ever try to dye my hair again it will look terrible as my ruined hair will take colour differently to my new roots. Don’t bore me with logistics. I just wanna have fun!  

He then went on to charge me $65 for a dry cut. Not even wash and blow out, just a dry trim.  

According to Stats NZ, in 1951 a women’s haircut cost 3 shillings or roughly $8 today. Price sampling from 2018 shows women’s haircuts are on average $63, and that’s without a dye job.  

As the cost of living increased by over 8% last year, it's hard for students to find cheap ways to have fun. It’s no wonder students turn to vintage and thrift shopping to explore their style.  

Sorry not sorry to all the hairdressers out there, but I stand by my $7.50 box dye adventure.