Wednesday Write-Up: Waging War on Giving Up

There are many things that I have gladly given up at one time or another while traveling. For example, freshly dried clothing-like in a dryer (isn’t sun-dried so much better anyway, well except for towels I think), or all-natural Tom’s toothpaste, or makeup that matches my skin tone, or even being able to bake (no ovens in Asia for the most part). There is only one thing that I truly (truly truly truly…) miss.

My fun hair color and style.

That’s me with platinum blonde hair and purple bangs (fringe) hamming it up with Zoë.

Yep, I know it is completely vain, and that I am on the trip of a lifetime, and I am safe and healthy, and living in Thailand. I am so thankful for all these things and more. But I miss my well-coiffed, straightened, platinum blonde (plus what ever other crazy color I felt like) hair.

For the back story, you can read my original post, Breaking Up is Hard To Do about what I had planned to make traveling easier. In short, I was going to dye my shoulder length hair a normal color and then let it grow out naturally as we traveled.  I did not think that I would be able to find hair stylists that could bleach my hair correctly (I turned out to be right about that actually).

We left in April of 2013 and I had shoulder length red hair, I continued with that until we had been in Portugal for a month or so. My hair started looking more and more like a mullet. It would not grow longer in the front and the back kept getting longer. I had done too much damage throughout the years bleaching it and it was telling me it was time to start over. So I chopped it off, well, a rad hairstylist we met in Lisbon, cut it off. I left her house with a pixie cut. I had never had that short of hair before and I loved it! It was easy, my curls were almost non-existent because it was so short, and I found out that my ears were not as big as I had thought!

 

My red hair before we left the States.

Good-bye hair!

My pixie cut in red.

Then I got bored with the red hair and decided to dye it black in Budapest. Bad idea! Black is impossible to get rid of and very hard to grow out.

My pixie cut in black. Wow, there’s the ears!

I kept getting my hair trimmed along our travels, never really running into any problems. Until Thailand. I decided to get rid of the two-tone hair that I had at the time (black and my natural roots) and cave and bleach my hair and get it cut. I needed something more trendy. More me.

I came out of the mall hair place (yes, I went to the mall and stupidly thought that the hair place there would be good) with  three tones of hair and a pretty bad haircut. That is when I decided that I was going to grow it out. For reals this time. I haven’t touched my hair since.

I took the picture from a good angle, it actually looks good here.

And now I am getting to that point, that point that everyone goes through when they are growing out their hair. It’s the dreaded “in-between stage”! I am doing my best to get through it, but now that we are heading home to visit next month I am feeling more and more that my “travel hair-style” is not working for me anymore. I am going to try to power through, but you may start seeing the pictures of me in this blog sporting pink or blue hair or something. I am going to try to win this war, even with every morning trying to do something with my hair is another battle.

People pay good money for ombre like this (or so I am telling myself). Also, I am so thankful that there are not many people who can see the top of my head.

Getting longer.

Wow, who knew I could write so much about my hair. Leave a comment and tell me what have you done to make it through the “in-between stage” with your hair? Or better yet, tell me a time when you got a really bad cut or color to make me realize my hair isn’t that bad.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to follow the blog,  follow me on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

 

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Breaking Up is Hard To Do

There are certain things that must be given up when you decide to travel for an extended period of time. Some things you give up with ease, like cooking dinner every night (ok, some of you may hate to give up cooking, but not me!) or even reliably hot showers. Other things are much more difficult to give up, like amazing Mexican food from your favorite taqueria (yes, its true, almost everything I think about has to do with food).

I have just started one of the most difficult tasks to prepare myself for roughing it on the road. I had to break up with my hair. Yes, you read that correctly, I had to end the relationship I have with my hair, long-distance relationships almost never work and this one definitely won’t.

My hair has been a beautiful platinum blonde consistently for the last 4 years (thanks to the wonderful Missy Jean at Daredevils and Queens) and before that off and on for 4 years. I love having blonde hair, always the whiter the better. I always have had more fun as a blonde (Marilyn Monroe wasn’t wrong) and the blonde has come to be part of my identity, it’s me.

It was a stressful day for me when I realized that I would not be able to take my blonde hair with me. I knew that I could not trust just anyone to bleach my hair as we made our way around the world, not even myself (although I am sure I would look great bald). This scary realization almost made me question our trip (I know it comes off as vain, but I really love my blonde hair!), can I really go back to my natural hair color? What is my natural hair color? I guess we will see.

After some (ok, lots) of self-talk, I decided that I should be excited for a change and now have started the process to letting my blonde hair go (have I told you how much I love it?). I decided though that if I am going to grow it out I am going to go a little crazy with it first.

Last year, for some fun I added a little bit of neon pink to my hair. Having a little color around my face, although I didn’t know it at the time, was a good preparation for what was to come.

Then I tried blue. 

Then I fell in love with purple. 

All of these colors though just accentuated the brilliant white blonde that was the rest of my hair. I still wasn’t ready to lose the blonde totally, until this week. We have two months left in good ole’ Santa Rosa and I was ready to start the process of going back to my natural hair color. So this past Monday, I had Missy dye my hair completely. No more tip-toeing around. I am now the proud wearer of lavender hair

Obviously I still haven’t come to terms with having to go back to drab light brown (or whatever it is now), so this was a fun and crazy in-between color. As our travels progress we all will get to see the way my hair grows out from the purple. It should be fun, so make sure to stay tuned!

It was a difficult break up for sure, but I may get back together with my blonde side when we settle somewhere. Until then I am a free woman, checking out what happens when I put away the bleach bottle. 

(Photos Taken by Chad, except for the last one, which I obviously took myself, would have made an awesome myspace photo, right?)