Once you go black you'll never go back

I risk assigning such a provocative title to this post. If you even knew the meaning to that phrase up there.

Fear not, this post has got no kinky connotation at all.

After going long, straight black for quite a long time, I've decided to change my hair colour/ style/ whatever you call it.

In case you've forgotten how I really look after all the Halloween make up and all, just click on my recent posts or look at my profile picture on the right side bar.

Yes, I used to sport un-black hair since I was 15years old. All shades of brown, blonde, golden lion tamarin, red with blonde streaks, any colours that did not require bleaching, all sorts of length, rebonded, permed, natural, with bangs, side swept, long, I've tried them.

Been spotting a light brown hair phase for the longest time ever with varying lengths and bangs.







I don't have digital photos of those from schooling days so yes, you don't get to see the red and the streaks.

2006 was the year I tried everything, totally spoilt my hair and got depression. Yes, only bimbos can fall into depression because of hair. lol

I dyed the lightest shade of blondish brown I've ever tried which led to people calling me golden lion tamarin. Actually those people were so wrong coz a golden lion tamarin has fur which is not golden but reddish like this.

Hubby Kh love my long blondish brown straight hair with bangs back then coz it matched my tan a lot and he loved it when I tied it into a ponytail.



And then when he went overseas, I got it permed the old fashion way and totally spoilt my hair. He hated me with curls but I didn't care coz it's MY hair. That was the time I got hair depression. lol... coz the perm plus recent colouring was so damaging, my hair was breaking mid sections. Moreover the curls weren't as lovely as the tonged kinda curls you see in top left photo of the collage below. They looked bad like the bottom ones.



That year, I also got accepted into a new company which once again entailed teaching and the bosses were initially unsure about my hair colour. However, I must say my inner teacher persona outshone some physical ah lian hair colour. Students loved me not only for being their cool teacher but for my teaching itself.

By the end of 2006, I got so sick of my dry-looking blondish brown that I dyed blue black. (I think... I can't really remember which black came first)



My friends were so used to my non-black Chinese hair that nobody could quite imagine how I looked like with black hair and advised me against dyeing black then. They thought I would look really weird. Even after I dyed blue black and subsequently ash black, the black would just fade like crazy on me after some time and I would wind up with coloured hair again and people would ask, "I thought you said you dyed your hair black?"

It seems like black isn't the way to go for me back then.

Here's how the blue black faded... and then I rebonded my hair and cut bangs coz I was sick of my curls.



I didn't know what went wrong but the straightness did not last and soon my hair became like this. Needless to say, I fell into a hair depression again. My hair then was neither straight nor wavy so I just had to wear my hair in a self-twirled manner or tong it during special occasions. The black also faded like crazy and I wound up with non-black hair again.



More black roots growing which still looked fine. I hated black roots back then but I found these acceptable coz at least my hair looked healthier then. Had bangs, grew them out, had bangs again.



Then I itchy fingers went to perm my hair once more. This time digital perm. I dunno why my hair looked brown in the bottom left picture. I think I dyed an ash black here.



I stopped colouring my hair after that and began to embrace that black is the new black.

I didn't look too bad in black hair with side swept bangs right?



After that I rebonded my hair again and sported blunt bangs. During this time, more people from friends to relatives started saying I look like Fann Wong once more. Yeah, Fann Wong also spotted the ugly blunt bangs look that year so I took that as an insult. lol... On normal occasions, that would be a compliment to which I always reply, "Yeah, I'm the uglified version of Fann Wong." The last time someone said I looked like her was like in year 2000?



Then I had to colour my hair again for my bridal photoshoot as all the people at the bridal studio asserted that brown hair looked better in photos. I didn't wanna go back to my blondish days so I opted for a darker shade of brown which I liked a lot. I'm done with dumb blonde days.

Kept a side swept fringe for the photoshoot...



but cut them again  for my actual wedding day. I didn't exactly like my bangs on my wedding day but I like it when they grew out as seen in the other pictures below.



After many years of not using DIY hair dye, I decided to give Liese Bubble hair dye in ash brown a go and I absolutely LURVE the way it turned out! It's exactly the kinda brown I like. Check out all my NYC travel entries.

But after a few months, it faded to orange which I absolutely detested! I didn't include the ugly orangey shade photos here but you could click on beginning 2010 to see pictures of the ugly orange.

I also had the most expensive bangs and sides cut in my life. USD$30 not inclusive of tips yet but I absolute loved it. None of my SGD$2.50 -- $5 fringe cut salon could imitate the same cut I did at a hip Japanese salon in New York.



From end 2009 onwards, I stopped chemically treating my hair and allowed my natural black hair to grow without rebonding or perming and I love the state it is now.

Now that I've been sporting a full head of naturally black hair, every group of friends who met me would comment on how they like me with my healthy black hair and how this look suits me so much, using flattering adjectives like "posh", "classy", "chic", "elegant", "mature" etc.

All the past positive adjectives  used to describe my un-black days like "sporty", "fun-loving", "cool", "beach babe" etcs have since been replaced by "You used to look like a/an __________________________." [Fill in the blank with SPG, ah lian, wild child, unserious playgirl... wtf is a playgirl?]

Ever since my god daughter Charmaine's passing, I made a pact with cyn mommy to go do our hair together. She was really in dire need of prettifying and pampering herself after 2.5 years of looking after Charchar and never leaving her side.

Doing our hair together was something which we've always planned to do so we're both really excited about it. Cyn mommy has already booked an appointment for us tomorrow afternoon and we simply cannot wait for tomorrow to come. Jase has been going round telling everyone that mommy and godma are going to do hair together and leaving him at home coz he would be bored at the salon. lol... Jase had promised us that he would be good and would not mind waiting even 5 hours at the salon for us. What a sweet gentleman! There would be so much to catch up on just within a span of a few weeks of not meeting.

Kh loves my current look a lot and asked if there was really a need to change something. In fact, all the friends I met up with recently except for a clique were in the same voice as kh.

To quote somebody close, "I love your current straight black hair with bangs look to match your bitchy but smoking grey eyes."

Bitchy? Thanx ah. Smoking grey? Yeah!

I wonder what would be my decision at the salon tomorrow!