28/09/2020
Splitting hairs by Michelle Anderson
During these dark and boring times, I turn to a topic that’s entirely trivial and un-newsworthy.
My hair.
Like a lot of people I’ve found myself with a bit of spare time on my hands and so I’ve been spending more and more time in the bathroom. This has meant some serious CSI investigation in to my looks. Until now, I’ve never really bothered too much with that girly stuff. After all, I don’t have to look at myself; you do!
Not a day goes by that a complete stranger doesn’t spontaneously mention my hair colour. In a good way thankfully. One 5 year old girl looked at me with shining eyes and exclaimed, “You have unicorn hair!”
The label stuck.
I found my first unicorn hair at age 18. It’s not hard to find in a haystack of black... Sticks out like lighthouse and begs to be struck by lightening. True to the wives tale, when I plucked the first one out, seven more grew in its place, and seven more for each one after that and so on and so on until DIY colouring became a routine every second day.
I just couldn’t keep up. Those white supremacists were too strong and quick to dominate the blacks.
Numerous hairdressers over the years have done a brilliant job of disguising the white as “highlights”.
Try they did. For years.
Now at 43, I have well and truly lost the white war against mother nature. My brunette locks are long gone but a new me has emerged in time for Act II Scene 1
of life.
Not everyone is happy about it.
My brother told me recently that he much preferred me as a brunette. I turned to him and told him that I agree, being a brunette is way better. Then I told him that I preferred him with a full head of hair.
He shut up after that.
As we unicorns say, the only way to truly fly is to believe in your wings. (Well I’m not altogether sure that that’s what unicorn say but it sounds very good doesn’t it. Very deep and metaphorical.)
Well, it’s not all doom and gloom - there are a few positives to being a silver fox;
when I go to the RSL, ladies say that I look “stunning” and that means a lot because, of all people, they can appreciate a decent purple rinse any day of the week.
Other positives;
I can basically change my hair colour to anything at any point in time because the white hair acts much like a white canvas. Eat your heart out Ken Done!
My skin looks more olive - even in winter...
I can’t quite see how many hairs are on the bathroom floor...
and the bus driver charged me a pensioner’s rate this afternoon!
Oh well at the end of the day there are some things you just cannot change; your age, your DNA and the likelihood that you’re going to end up looking like your Sri Lankan Aunties no matter what you do.
(At least I addressed that whole bra issue years ago or, going by the Aunty theory, the b**b to knee ratio would narrow and be cause for concern.)
One out of two ain’t bad.
