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This is Beth. I once went curly on demand. For a guy. I was young. It was so long ago, in fact, that the straight do I had been doing was the Rachel. The relationship didn’t last, although a friendship did. The curly hair still comes and goes.

I think of it because a friend recently embraced her curls with the support and encouragement of her partner. She said, “he is pleased that in the past year he’s gotten me over my fear of my naturally curly hair. You may recall it used to be pin-straight all the time. I used to spend waaaaay too long on that! Now straight is an option, not a must.” He calls this her best hair year ever.

It’s a love story, with a hair component!

love story

Happy Day.

P.S. Thanks Kate and Troy.

P.P.S. Happy Birthday Liz!

This is Beth. As promised, February features friends with dark hair. First up, Kate and Kate—both work at a neighboring museum, both like beverages.

two dark hair kates 1 two dark hair kates 2

Cheers!

two dark hair kates 3

This is Beth. Over the years my hair has varied fairly dramatically in color—browns, reddish-browns (purplish to orangish), light browns—but I’m new to the very dark. And I wonder (here with very dark dye):

Feb color

How dark is very dark? At what point does brown become black? Does “brunette” include very dark, black hair?

SV BEC you decide

You decide.

This is Beth. And it’s February.

1. The Do—Dark. Very dark. Inspired by famous females with shadowy tresses:

Alanis MorissetteAmerica FerreraAngela BassettAudrey HepburnCatherine Zeta JonesCherDiana RossIsabella RosselliniJennifer HudsonJoan CollinsKaty PerryLea MicheleLucy LiuNatalie WoodNaya RiveraPadma LakshmiSandra OhZooey Deschanel

New this month: inspiration from closer to home—friend and colleague Andrea generously gave me permission to share her image:

AndreaAndrea2Andrea3

(Pics of others I know who have very dark hair to come in future posts.)

I’ll be doing my take on a very dark do soft & wavy most of the month, if the hair cooperates.

2. Music (what was playing at the salon during the doing of the do)—Note: music plays all the time at Bang, I don’t get to pick do-appropriate songs. This time what I heard, noticed, remember: Marvin Gaye Let’s Get It On and Al Green Let’s Stay Together. Like.

3. Drink (what I sipped at the salon during the doing of the do)—Note: I do get to choose the do-appropriate drink—I bring the mixin’s and mix. This time, Black Russian, the tall/dirty variety.

Feb drink mixin's Feb drinkin' Feb drink color card

Ice/Kahlua/vodka. A splash of cola makes it tall and/or dirty. Yum.

4. The Theory—Mysterious. Exotic. Stereotypes include: stormy, intense, angry.

5. Reactions—I’m pretty sure I can’t pull off exotic, we’ll see…

Feb done2

P.S. Title song: Led Zeppelin’s The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair (I do declare, yeah, she’s got long black wavy hair).

This is Beth. With a few more month-one tidbits.

Driving—I got a ticket on the way to do the first do. Speeding captured by photo radar.

Makeup— I added tinted moisturizer and eyeliner to the just-mascara look I’d been sporting since the mid-to-late ’80s. No one really noticed.

Theory—Early in the month I was presented with a book (thank you Derek and Jilly): The Roots of Desire: the Myth, Meaning, and Sexual Power of Red Hair by Marion Roach. Had planned to mine it for some good information to share before the January experiment drew to a close, but time ran out.

Redhead theory book

And, sadly, I didn’t gather much in the realm of personal anecdotes.

This is Beth. The reporting continues.

Overall people seemed to like the do I dubbed January Orange. Paraphrasing: you can pull it off, it’s a color you should go back to. Mostly from people who know me or see me fairly frequently. I didn’t get much of a reaction from strangers or individuals I don’t see much. The day after the doing of the do (when the color was most intense) the dentist asked politely if I’d changed my hair. A few days later a server mentioned I look different as he checked my ID (yep, got carded).

Far more interesting, though, is the small sample that indicates Liz and I were able to spread a tiny bit of joy. For example, we heard:

“Seeing you guys just makes me smile.”

“Happy hair.”

“You look like you’re ready to party, let’s go.”

And the best—sitting next to a colleague as she read a post for the first time. She laughed out loud. More than once.

We started this project as a distraction from seriousness and sadness in the world. There’s a lot of that going around right now. Any little smile, grin, bit of laughter is welcome.

P.S. The branded combs seemed to be a hit too.

Fun with combs3

P.S.S. In other comb-related news—While walking her dog, Liz came across an unfortunate squirrel in a mysterious position:

Squirrel with comb

We recreated the scene with our product:

Liz with combs1

(Brought to you by changingthelocks.com.)

Changing the Locks is now on twitter (@ChangingLocks ), if you are into that kind of thing.

This is Michelle.  I’m not one of the 24 dos duo but I will be writing occasionally.  When Beth told me she was doing this, I immediately thought I should grow my hair out. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a new do. I told my husband, Brad, and we agreed we might try it together.  Why not? Someone said, “It’s just hair. You can always grow it out.” Well, in our case, you can always cut it off. And that, of course, is the first question: Can we do this? Will we last?  Frankly, it’s already a bit painful.

Here is what we looked like recently.  Picture us without the fancy garb and makeup and that is pretty much who we are.

Late 2011 Look

We’ve been growing our hair beyond the maximum of our normal length for a few weeks.  This stage is not always pretty as anyone who has grown short hair out knows.  I alternate between Dennis the Menace and what I call Rooster looks.  Today I kind of like it – spiky and messy.  That’s my style, which with my hair is much easier super short.

January Look

Some people, maybe even some of you, say we look alike or we go together.  I’ve heard that if you are together long enough you’ll look alike; there are even studies about it.  In these two pictures, yeah, I think we do look alike.  But we haven’t always.

In this picture from over twenty years ago, we look pretty different but happy! Look at those young pups.  In a year, will I have long golden curly locks and could Brad have brown hair again?  This seems unlikely.

Wedding

Note: Beth took this photo, my favorite from our wedding day

Questions on my mind today:

  • Again, can we do this?
  • How will the greys look when longer?
  • Does Brad still have curly hair?
  • Is there a guy’s long hairstyle that looks good?
  • Will we save money?
  • Whose hair will grow faster?
  • Why are we doing this?

Liz here,

Kicking off 2013 with a quick review of some French/fashion vocabulary:

OMBRÉ   adjective  \ˈäm-ˌbrā\

55C07B22-C69C-443E-9064-7A100E677664

Definition: having colors or tones that shade into each other —used especially of fabrics in which the color is graduated from light to dark

Origin: French, past participle of ombrer to shade, from Italianombrare, from ombra shade, from Latin umbra — more at umbrage

First Known Use: 1893

Ombre fabric was huge in ’70s fashion, like this Bill Blass caftan, and t’s still popular (lot more images at this blog):

224405993903458088_ga08mIUb_cOmbre-runway-e1345142258787

It’s also become a big trend in hair:

ScreenHunter_13 Jan. 03 23.30

In fact, U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) was even sporting the ombre bangs at the start of the 2013 congressional session (she also has exceptional taste in boots!)

delaura-e1357309775951   delauro051511

 

To start off the year, my hairdresser/stylist/partner-in-hair-crimes-for-2013, Maggie at Double Dutch suggested that we start out with something subtle, to ease into the project. Before I went in for my appointment, one of my co-workers enthusiastically said “ombre!”, so when Maggie brought it up, I was already primed.

(I’m having some issues with editing and uploading pics, but I’ll try to do a post about the process later this month.)

And here’s a few shots of the finished product:

7F78468C-37F5-4CB4-86DE-0F9B647BE9FA  FAE2CAA8-4571-4FA7-9DAB-3CECE5E51B72

Liz here,

Even though I haven’t been blogging as much as Beth, and even though I am a bit (a lot?) behind on the practical side of planning for 2013 Hair-o-rama, my subconscious is hard at work thinking about the hair project.

Image

Last Saturday, I dreamed that I was on a plane to somewhere in South America. When we arrived, I learned that I was part of a semester abroad program, and that I would be living/studying/researching somewhere in the mountains of Peru? Brazil? Chile? for 3 months. In the dream, I wasn’t too worried that I had left behind my actual job, family obligations, and new dog for 3 months, or that I was going to be living in a foreign country with apparently no preparation, or that I would be sharing a room with college students. BUT I did have a moment before I woke, when I clearly thought: “I’ll have to find someone here in S. America who can cut and style my hair each month, good thing there are hairdressers here…”

Then this Saturday, I dreamed that I had decided that my first hair style would be straightened, flat-ironed hair. So I needed to purchase a flat iron. I met some guy who would sell me one, and he convinced me to get a combination flat-iron/ cell phone. So I got it, but it was sort of an old school flip phone that had a very small flat iron attachment, and I immediately thought “wait, why did I just trade this guy my new-ish iphone for a phone that is also a hair styling tool? What the heck was I thinking.” (Much relief when I woke up from that dream to the sound of my iphone alarm.)

Analyzing these dreams, I think that they show that I’m definitely committed to the project (even if I end up in another continent) but that I’m a little concerned about what crazy things I might do in pursuit of the next hair style (hopefully not downgrade my phone, but who knows!)