Raegan & Her Hair

Raegan has never really been one for being a girly girl, even when she was little. She tolerated me dressing her up for the holidays, but she just never got into it. It's only gotten worse as she's gotten older. She hates pink, and almost completely refuses to wear skirts or dresses. I can get her into the rare one, but not often.

Her hair is a struggle for us. First off, she has very thick hair, which has just enough of a natural wave to it to make it more prone to tangling up. Next, for the past few years, she's been very big on growing it out. She also hates to have it brushed. She'll brush it- but she won't brush more than the top layer.

That leads to nasty snarls hiding underneath. I trimmed it for her a few months ago, to get the ratty ends off, but nothing more than that. For the past few months, I've been telling her that if she doesn't start taking care of it, I'd cut it off.

A couple of weeks ago, Raegan told me she wants to dye her hair. At 12, I'd prefer she didn't, but I think I was her same age when I started wanting to dye mine as well. I waited until I was about 16, though. Raegan has the most gorgeous naturally light brown hair with streaks of natural golden high lights. I mean, women pay big money to go to a salon to get the type of natural high lights Raegan's hair has in the summer.

However, she hates the blond aspect of he hair, and wants it darker. She was thinking a medium brown. I told her no at first. Well, then about a week after that, I found some dye by L'Oreal that is not a permanent dye. It's a mousse in, wash out in 2 weeks dye. It was at a dollar store, but not expired or anything. The downside is that they only had 2 colors to choose from- Red Pulse and Hot Mahogany. Since she was with me, I let her pick. She choose the Mahogany, since the color showed darker. The red one showed up almost comic book red in color.

Since then, I've been putting her off, telling her after we take the Christmas pictures, we could do it. Well, we took those on Friday, so she's been bugging me since then to do her hair. Tonight, I finally let her. But not without being a bit sneaky.

The pack said to wash her hair first, so we did that, then I started brushing it out, and as I was doing that, I realized I had a golden opportunity to get rid of the snarled ratty ends of her hair, while making good on my promise to cut it off if she didn't take care of it.

I snuck a pair of scissors under my arm (my sweater was baggy to cover it without it being under my shirt), and sat behind her, then took a chunk about 3 inches long off the middle of her hair in the back. Then, after her shock wore off, I snipped my way around, leaving it a bit shorter in the front to frame her face.

After that, I laid on the dye. It's in her hair right now, for another 15 minutes. It's very bright orangish, but I think since it's a temporary dye, it won't look nearly as bright on her head as it does right now. The lighter streaks will take it better than the darker hair.

She'll enjoy it, and after this, won't be getting it done again unless I find the same kind of dye cheap. I won't use no-brand dyes (I have been dying my hair for almost 15 years now, and know what brands to trust, and what not to trust- a lot of dyes do unseen damage to your hair).  Maybe this will also get it out of her system, ya know?