Weddingbee Blog

I’ve never been one to swear in polite company, and I feel incredibly uncomfortable putting expletives in writing because of the medium’s permanency. But some occasions call for a little swearing, and this is one of them.

Hive, I have a bullsh*t hair color.

Now I don’t mean that quite literally (though I guess you could say that my hair color does, in fact, resemble actual bullsh*t). When I use the term “bullsh*t,” though, I usually use it to mean something akin to “nonsense.” So when I say that I have a bullsh*t hair color, I mean that my hair color is basically nonsense. To me, it’s more like a non-color.

Growing up, I was a towhead. I had really light blonde curly hair. And I loved being a blonde. I don’t know why, but I always really identified with having blonde hair. I swore that if it ever darkened, I would immediately start dying it blonde again.

Well, like most towheads, my hair did darken over the years, and by the time I was eighteen or so, my once lovely blonde hair looked like this:

Personal Photo

Needless to say, this color was not going to fly with me. I still thought of myself as a blonde, and I wanted to get back to my roots (oh yes I did). I wasn’t quite ready to start dying my hair completely, so I eased in with highlights, and I loved them! They got me back to a natural blonde color that I felt really comfortable with.

Sister Parasol is also a towhead and, like me, has to rely on highlights to maintain her blonde locks. / Personal Photo

I kept up the blonde highlights for several years, but then after college, I got a little antsy and felt like I wanted a change. I didn’t want something too drastic like bright red or green, but I did want something to really shake things up for me, hair-wise. So I dyed my hair a dark rich chocolate brown.

Personal Photo

You would think a towhead like me, who identified so strongly with being a blonde, would freak out when she saw a head of dark brown hair staring back at her in the mirror. But not this towhead. Hive, I loved my new hair color. I immediately turned in my blonde membership card and happily trotted my way over to the brunette team.

Since making that discovery about three years ago, I’ve regularly dyed my hair dark brown. But I decided that I would give my hair a rest in the months leading up to the wedding. I wanted my hair to be as healthy as possible, and I knew dying it every couple of months wasn’t the best thing for my hair. I never doubted that I would dye my hair for the actual wedding. There was never any question: I was walking down the aisle with a head of luscious brown locks.

But in the months between my last dye job and the wedding, I rediscovered my natural hair color for the first time in several years. And yes, it’s totally a bullsh*t color. I still stand by my assertion that it’s not really a color at all. A light muddy brown? A dark dirty blonde? I don’t know. It’s total bullsh*t.

Personal Photo

No wonder I was so quick to start highlighting my hair at eighteen. My hair color is in no-man’s land.

Since we’re just about three weeks away from the wedding (eek!), I decided this was a good time to go in and get my hair professionally dyed (a first for me). I thought three weeks would give me enough time to “ease” back into the color, it would be enough time for my hair color to fade a little and look more natural, and there would still be time to fix it if, God forbid, anything went wrong.

I’m glad I gave myself three weeks because, of course, something went wrong. It’s not terrible. I don’t have fire engine red hair. But my hair is still a muddy sort of light brown color, and I’m not thrilled.

Personal Photo

The girl who did my hair knew from the get-go that I wouldn’t like the color, but her supervisor kept pushing and pushing for a lighter, more translucent color. Since dark brown is so different from my natural color, the supervisor was worried that it would be too dark for me, and I wouldn’t be happy. Of course, I wasn’t going to be happy unless I got the rich dark brown I had become so attached to.

Thankfully they’re going to re-dye my hair tomorrow at no cost. And this time, my stylist and I will remain adamant: we’re going dark, Sandra Bullock dark. Because one thing’s for certain: I’m not walking down the aisle with a bullsh*t hair color.

Did you have any trouble deciding on your hair color for the wedding and getting exactly what you envisioned? Anyone else in the bullsh*t hair color club?