So I got my haircut, and I haven�t spoken of it here yet, because I was really thinking it was unfair to do so without posting a picture. But running out to my parent�s house to do so hasn�t worked out either.

When you give your stylist permission to cut off 5 inches (just below my shoulders) you figure she�ll be happy with that- that�s cutting off a lot of long hair, and that�s what stylists live for right? (Well, honestly Melissa is good with leaving it long really, but..)

Maybe it�s because I asked her blunt cut the bottom and it set her off into a new vision for my hair. Strangely enough, she pretty much gave me the exact haircut I asked her for last spring. In any case, I was left liking my hair, but feeling VERY Suburban. Middle-aged Suburban Mom. And it�s not that it�s not a hip haircut, but I recently decided to lighten my hair because I saw some family pictures where my hair color looked a little ridiculously Goth for my taste. So I had lifted out the Feria Chocolate Cherry, and went lighter.

Right away, I knew that the middle-of-the-road lighter wasn�t going to make me happy. First of all, it was still too reddish-burgundy and I had my fill of burgundy hair at age 23. No more cranberry, wine, red with ultra-violet overtones, no more redwine mixed with eggplant (now I'm in the mood for dinner!) But being I haven�t had much resolve to do much of anything, I was laying in wait with what to do to fix my hair color. Because I was still picturing medium brown hair with highlights a la Rebecca Budig who plays Greenlea on All My Children. Or streaks like Callie Thorne�s on Rescue Me.

But with this new haircut- which for lack of a better description I�m calling �punk rock Kristy McNichol� but looks a lot like Katey Segal�s hair without the bangs. Suburban mom. Hot suburban mom maybe, but still.

But the haircut is great. Easy to style and after living with it for a week, I definitely decided I liked the haircut. I�ll like it a lot when it grows another 1� �. But the haircut + hair color was bringing me down.

When I went to Sally Beauty Supply to buy the Color fix stuff to lift the color out of my hair, I looked at everything. Because, you know, I have to look at everything in case it�s much much cheaper there. And Wella had a color that was exactly the grape jolly rancher color of my dreams. It was only a semi-permanent, but it was perfection. I still proceeded with my plans because I had already made up my mind with the lift out the burgundy go light brown plan. Plus once my hair was lighter, if I went dark again using the color of my dreams the purple would be a little brighter.

So after a week of full on KNOWING that my hair HAD to be dark again, I decided to paint highlights in with lightening powder, and then put the perfect color over it. So I did. Because, you know, I am a hair color professional.

Let�s just say that my first attempt at highlighting was a mess. If I had intended it just to be highlights without putting color over it again, I would be a joke. Because those color wands for painting on highlights? They are a joke. They don�t apply the goo on thick enough to make it work. Or maybe I should have used a stronger developer to be able to put the highlighting paste on in a lighter application.

The good news is the perfect color really is the PERFECT COLOR. It�s the color of a concord grape. It�s totally grape jolly rancher. It dark, I know, and that was the whole issue leading to the lightening experiment, but I guess I�ll just have to remember to apply a little BLUSH before someone takes my picture. Because I am so so so happy that my hair is dark again. It�s excellent. Better than excellent, it�s COMIC BOOK and also somehow very natural looking PURPLE hair.

It�s just like in a color comic when for instance Veronica (or Superman) with blue highlights that black hair are shown with, only mine are purple. And my hair doesn�t look black. When it�s backlit by the sun (in my rearview mirror) instead of looking really cranberry (which really really bothered me) it looks VIOLET. The closest this color is coming to red is violet pink.

So hooray for me. I am fulfilled. I am myself again and for the first time ever.
Make sense of that!

Pictures soon, I promise.