Hot Pink is a regular column on nzgirl that's sure to have you in stiches! Don't miss your weekly fix.
To find out all about its author, Penny Ashton, just click hereThis journalism business is filled with deadlines and the need to be professional.
I am already running late for this week and so have imposed a new deadline on myself in the form of hair dye.
Yep if I had a webcam (which I sooooo do not, I mean what are they for apart from a sly web w**k) you’d be able to see me with a big mess of red goop on my hair as I furiously type to finish this before I have to wash it off in half an hour.
I have often pondered if I should get over my addiction to red hair dye and try something different.
I have had red hair with blonde streaks since 1997. The first time I got it done I was in Budapest, and I mean in Hungary not some flash salon in Ponsonby Rd, by Helga (as I’ve decided she was called). Helga spoke no English at all and I had to have my desires translated to her by Olga (why not?) who had only marginally more language skills.
Strangely I wasn’t nervous as these buxom ladies busied themselves around my head. I was 23 in Europe on my OE living life on the edge! Some people like to trek through the Andes, live on a kibbutz or swim with polar bears, but I laugh in the face of death by dabbling with very intensely coloured chemicals. Take that Mark Ingils.
The result, amazingly enough, was very pleasing so I paid my forints and went off smiling and looking slightly like a pre-anorexic Geri Halliwell. (I told them what I wanted, what I really really wanted.)
Since then I have repeated this process all over the world with varying degrees of success.
The worst time ever was in London. I rang around trying to find someone who would be willing to do foil streaks on pre-coloured red hair. This proved very tricky. One woman told me she couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t go pink, and when I replied that would be quite cool you could almost hear her think “FREAK!” on the phone before she hung up on me. I finally found one near my Streatham home and headed over.
All seemed to be going well until I ran my fingers through my hair after the process and clumps of it came out in my hands. More than that it was like it had been electrocuted and turned into rubber bands. My hair was more messed up than Kate Moss’ nasal passages and soon the streaks literally fell leaving stubble akin to a reaped hay field.
Not being fond of the chemotherapy look I was mortified, but luckily it grew back soon enough.
My best dying experiences have been in the past few years since they brought out those genius self-dye kits. I do it all myself now and it costs about $35, OK sometimes little globs appear in odd places BUT hey, it’s the Jackson Pollock approach.
I should maybe try brown or blonde one of these days but hey, nothing clashes with pink like red and, as my mother would say, it matches my temperament.
S**T! It’s been on now for 40 mins, I’d better wash it off before crows start nesting on my stubbly head.
Penny
Last updated: 28/04/2008
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Hot Pink is a regular column on nzgirl that's sure to have you in stiches! Don't miss your weekly fix.
To find out all about its author, Penny Ashton, just