Summer of Hair That's Accidentally Green

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DISCLAIMER
The following post is recommended for mature viewers.

Graphic images of naked hair, Rubenesque women, and household products follow.

Consider yourself warned.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

As some of you may recall from previous posts, I've already turned my hair green once this summer, wrangling a box of Ash Blonde. Well, I've done it again. In a completely new way, even. Hence, in celebration of this odd trend of verdant tresses, I've dubbed this the Summer of Hair that's Accidentally Green, or SHAG.

It all began with a pleasant evening of night swimming at my friend Jean-Luc Picard's* apartment pool. Wanting to live in a trendy (read: gay) part of town, he pays far too much rent, enabling near, dear friends like me to make use of his, um, amenities. So I enjoy the pool, relax in the hot tub bubbles, steam in the sauna, oblivious to the danger a cheveux swirling around me in insidious, deceptive waves of uber-chlorination. In fact, except for being briefly skeeved in the spa shower when I noticed some dried "conditioner" splattered five feet up on the wall, I never realized the peril I was in.

Long about midnight thirty, I'm dressed, showered, and walking out when I catch a glimpse of a mysterious patina curling about the ends of the familiar frizz that is my hair.

Of course, I am shocked but undaunted. Diehard bleach blondes such as myself know that generally, a 2-liter club soda rinse will wash the green clean. So I trooped to the store, my relaxation morphing into annoyed ass-dragging, got home, and hit the shower with the dog staring at me and doubtless wondering why I was pouring beverages onto my head. Trouble was, it didn't work this time.




Apparently my hair had soaked up a club-soda resistant strain of green, and I still looked like a chunky mermaid who'd lost her tail somewhere. Well, shit. I wasn't about to go any fucking where now to buy chlorine-out shampoo, I didn't wanna go to bed and let it dry that way, thinking maybe I'd keep look like somethin' the sea'd rejected for a month or so, and a 1 am impromptu self-bob was right out.

After mulling these options, there was just nowhere else to turn. I appealed to a higher power: the interweb. "Mix vinegar and aspirin," some message board goddess recommended. Suspicious, I cross-referenced the remedy somewhere else. Yes, that was the sure cure. Supposedly.

Nekkid and pissy, I sought, found and mixed the components of the green-away tincture and dumped it on my involuntary highlights. Rinsed. No dice. Should you care to try it though, I advise you to secure your eyelids shut very tightly with tape, or wear goggles. Vinegar and aspirin in the eyes stings. A lot.

Dripping and irritable, I went back to the computer. This was it. If the next thing I did didn't work, I'd just have to join a band or somethin'. So I scrolled down the Fucked Hair Help Message Board some more, looking for some way outta this chlorine corner I'd backed myself into. There had to be something short of Drano that I both had in my possession and could be used to de-greenify.... and finally, the answer came: tomato paste.

I'd wager that few activities are more surreal and nasty than smearing pulverized tomatoes onto your head in the wee hours without so much as the benefit of a high blood-alcohol level. It mixes the normally mundane pursuits of eating and showering in an unholy way, transforming them into something unclean. And after you're done marinating your head in squishy spaghetti-smelling goo, watching a seemingly endless river of red-stained water flow off your body and down the drain is enough to make you feel like your last name's Macbeth.

However, there is one good thing about the tomato paste method: it worked.

I never thought I'd say this, but after this summer, I hope I never have another SHAG again.

* Fictional nombre, factual hombre

** For those of you who've been patiently waiting, yes,

I am completely nude in 3 out of 4 of those pics.

Don't you feel special that I was thinking about you in my times of trial? :)