I decided to visit the local hairdresser on my street, the one with the cute little baby... I had actually seen people getting their hair done there, and it wasn't an all-night "hairdresser" like the ones by the bus stop that men come out of at 11pm, so I figured it'd be safe...
(note: In the U.S. I had only been to a hairdresser once - when I was the maid of honor in my sister's wedding; she made us all go together. Now WHAT on earth possessed me to go to a hairdresser in CHINA?? Please don't ask... a friend talked me into covering some grey, which I don't normally care about, but I succumbed to the peer pressure and adventure of doing something new...)
(note: In the U.S. I had only been to a hairdresser once - when I was the maid of honor in my sister's wedding; she made us all go together. Now WHAT on earth possessed me to go to a hairdresser in CHINA?? Please don't ask... a friend talked me into covering some grey, which I don't normally care about, but I succumbed to the peer pressure and adventure of doing something new...)
I asked for my natural color, to cover a little bit of grey. I said everything right; it was VERY CLEAR what I wanted and they definitely understood. They said they can't just dye part, they have to do my whole head. They showed me a book of fake hair samples and I pointed to the color I wanted. But as they bleached out my color I wondered why they weren't putting any brown in... they thought I'd like it if they made me BLEACH BLONDE! They styled it all nice and I said "why didn't you put brown?" and he said, "but it's so pretty isn't it??" and I got mad saying I asked for brown, the brown in the book, and would you believe he said they were all out of that one?!? I said so why didn't you tell me, you just put no color?!? (knowing he just wanted to experiment on me) ...I was so mad.
They told me to pick a different brown and they'd put it in... ...they suggested a brown, and knowing my colors I could see it had a very tiny hint of reddish in it. I said no, it has a little red (knowing that the red would be pulled out on the bleach-blonde) but they insisted it wouldn't be noticeable, and I decided to believe them. As they were rinsing my hair (and I couldn't yet see it) they quietly muttered things I didn't understand, and I said in chinese, "too much red, right?" and they didn't want to say, but, well, you can see for yourself...
I had to call my boss from the chair, cape on shoulders, making them pause their blow-drying, in tears, explaining why I had to miss a class. I held the phone up to the hairdresser and angrily cried in Chinese, "YOU tell my boss why I'm late!" Of course she didn't, and I didn't expect her to. My boss said, "Well, just get here as soon as you can no matter what color your hair is."
I was there FOUR HOURS total!!! I really did cry for real, and they started to feel bad and said they'd fix it. I said in my bad chinese, "two times you did it wrong, you want to do it a third time?? You think I'm stupid?!?" and they just said sorry, sorry, come back tomorrow, and I said "Really? Tomorrow you'll know how to make brown??" and I left, running home, trying not to miss my next class. I was so embarrassed to go into work, but then some of the other teachers said I looked sexy that way. Even if it was a lie it made me laugh and feel better.
I let my hair rest 2-3 days then a Chinese friend took me to buy a box of brown from the supermarket and we did it at my house and it made it a tiny bit darker but not much.
After that, every 3-4 weeks I did another box of brown trying to make it darker and darker, but it would always fade back to red after a few weeks. This all happened TWO YEARS AGO this month (April 2007) and my hair still has light, dry ends.
