Hey, the Lady from Cost Cutters could be right about me...

Good afternoon!

I am growing a beard.

Got your attention, didn't I?

Yep, I come from  a hairy people.  I inherited a lot of great things from my Northern German ancestors.  I'm industrious, I love to sing, I have a loud hearty laugh.  But one of the less than great things is that I am a hairy person. 

When I was in my teens my mother sent me to a Swedish electrologist.  One thing you should know about the Swedes...they are NOT a hairy people.  So for a woman who never had one follicle of unwanted body hair to enter a profession based on unwanted body hair...well, lets just say she had no clue about how much current to fire down the hole, so to speak.  The other, more cruel reality is that electrolysis is not as permanent as one would hope.

So now I'm in my 40's, and my moustache is starting to make a comeback.  But more troubling is the beard.  That started as one prickly hair on my chin when I was 17.  Now, if left untended, I could raise a fairly reasonable goatee...

So I do what all American women do.  I pluck, I shave, I use chemicals to burn the hair off my face, and I've done the laser thing that pretty much cleaned out my bank account.  (I'm sure it's gotten better since I tried it ten years ago and if Ideal Image would like to make me their spokesperson, I'd work for free hair removal!)  Remember NADS?  I did that for a couple years on my whole face.  I don't know what sort of pain tolerance Australian women have, but every time I did it, it hurt.  It didn't remove chin hair at all, and I managed to remove my left eyebrow completely for a summer.  Meanwhile, all that's managed to happen is that the beard comes back, black.

But I'm not here to talk about my black beard.  I'm hear to talk about the irony that is old age...my gray hair.

Yes.  The hair on my face is getting blacker with every day.  The hair on my head is turning white. 

That started at a young age as well.  I was 22. It was my wedding day.  My mother's hair dresser was doing something so evil to my head I've never done it since.  and she, very nicely, pointed out my first patch of gray hair, along the hairline, right above my right eye.

Lovely.

In the 20 years since my weeding, that little patch has turned into a circle of white that I cannot explain.  The roots are white.  The ends of the hair is blond-ish.  The roots don't hold hair color at all.  The ends do.  Since I wear my hair short, and away from my face, this awesome sort of tri-color hair look is visible all the time.

And to answer your question, no, I haven't had my hair professionally colored yet.  I'm not ready to part with a ton of money for hair treatment just yet.  I need to learn to trust after the beard thing didn't work.

But yesterday I got a hair cut  (yes, I have a weigh in today...every ounce helps.) I go to Cost Cutters  because I can get in there any time and generally, since my super model days are over, they give me a look that suits my life style for the price I'm willing to pay.  Sometimes I get a really good woman doing my hair, as was the case yesterday.  Her name is Roberta.  I'm giving her real name because I don't want to forget it.  Although, with my luck, she'll quit next week and I'll never see her again.  That's what happens when I find someone at Cost Cutters that I really like.

Roberta looked to be about my age and we had a great chit chat about volunteering, church stuff, charities, and hair.  She worked well around my cow licks  (I have cow licks that make my head a challenge to cut.)  and did not mock my box bleached hair.  Instead, she said, "Well, I see you have a platinum blond halo going.  We could do some highlights to sort of blend with that."

Did you see that?  Platinum blond halo.  How pretty is that?

And then she said, "Well, that's just the angel in you shining out."

Oh yeah...she got a good tip.

Bonus, she said she could do something to make my hair look less...tri colored.  At a discount.

I might be willing to give it a go.

I wonder if Roberta is any good with unwanted hair removal.