Suzy Says

Back in the golden days of our youth, my siblings and I were all golden-haired. But when puberty reared its ugly head, mine went from gleaming to drab, seemingly overnight. “We’ll take your blonde hair and swap it for decades of menstrual hell and pregnancy scares! Enjoy!”

This was about the time I began to realize that being a grown-up would not be the staying up late, eating pizza, and partying with your friends festival that I had envisioned.

Needless to say, my brother, the only boy, has retained his thick, almost platinum blonde hair into his 40s. He doesn’t really think about his hair, washes it with soap most of the time, and keeps it ruthlessly short year-round. Of course, he also has Dad’s blazing blue eyes and his own absurdly long eyelashes. Just another of Ma Nature’s wickedly unfunny jokes.

Once the plague of puberty had mousened me, I fought back by dyeing my hair, sometimes to its former glory and sometimes pink or purple, since it was the ’80s, one of the most embarrassing and unflattering decades ever, and things like that seemed like a good idea at the time. Like parachute pants and giant shoulder pads that would have made Joan Crawford balk. Or lift her eyebrows even further, if that’s possible.

When the recession hit and I found myself having to sell my jewelry to pay the bills (sob) and even buy socks, personal maintenance fell by the wayside, along with fashion magazine subscriptions. No more highlights, waxing, or mani-pedis. It was a dark and ugly time. Much like my grown-out hair.

But it’s always darkest before the dawn, so for this landmark birthday*, Megan bought me highlights for my hair! The artist in question is a charming lady who cuts Lichen’s hair (even the most accomplished stylist can’t cut their own hair). She has a little studio in the former pump house on her property. We had a great time chatting with her as she worked on my hair. She is from Germany, where hairdressers train for nearly four years as apprentices, spending part of their week at school and part of it at the salon, helping and observing and taking on greater responsibility as time goes by.

All I can say is all that training really pays off. My hair looks completely natural, but so much better and brighter. She also cut it, and when she was finished blow drying it, it had never looked so good. Bright and bouncy and fabulous. Unfortunately for you, I had no make-up on that day and was too vain to document my new and improved hair with my old and unimproved face, so you will just have to take my word for it for now. I will be interested to see how it looks after I do it myself tomorrow morning. If I were rich, I would definitely have a stylist on my staff.

In other happy news, Megan and Rob are celebrating their 21st anniversary today!

*Since I had the highlights installed on the next to last day of June, I really did have almost a birthday month!