The level 11 platinum mishap) that lost all of my conservative clients after my brothers death is finally vanishing from 2005. I went to the same hometown salon and they were busy (for a change) so they let their less conservative daughter do my lowlights. Lowlights with a few blond highlights before she started talking about my brother and turned me into a platinum blonde freak after foil after foil was laid down in my hair and she talked about partying.-- it didn't go over well with the international families whose kids I taught. It was already a stretch they hired me as a Hapa
So it took many years of my trying to resolve the expensive disaster on my own. Going from metallic black to blonde since I found some friendlier people after 9/11 through my first experience being blonde.
But, it was a total life changing disaster.
And my coarse Asia hapa hair was barely holding up at all- blown cuticle etc by the time I arrived in Oahu. It was a time other mainland Hapa and AAPI started arriving to seek peace from the mainland.
I found and afforded natural egan and hapa/Asian salon visits to heal my hair. They did their best for me, but I still wasn't. back to me. Not even when I attended the big international trade summit to show face- sadly as a mostly blonde that reeked of unity with the USA. No, the past decade of my life has not been about me at all-- it's been about everyone scratching their name into my being to make their statement- like tourists carve their names into trees to leave their mark.
I used to gawk at the beautiful model photo at the entrance of the salon sitting on the beach with thick shiny healthy natural Asian hair. Not this mop that reminded me of so many racist people I loathed and I had to heavily condition and gloss to get a shine.
So it's been 4 years. And my hair is no longer soft and wispy from the chemical treatments. It's returned to it's natural nisei hapa thickness for the most part. Still, I probably have 3 years to grow all of it out with regular trims. I thought it wouldn't take so long -8 years, but I kept at the balayage for a while before I dropped doing highlights alltogether. Today, I'm proud to have mostly virgin hair color- aside from the toner I used to cut down on the old colored ends that were once top notch hand painted highlights. 2018 had been my marker- but I'm still getting the color trmed out of my hair. Maybe another 2 years and I'll be covering up the increasing greys.
So for everyone who destests natural hair color for selfies and pic and vids- I have been longing for it for a while. And I'm ok with being me, authentically.
