The Struggle Is Real

One of the biggest struggles I have is my hair. Really, Abbie? Your hair? Yes, my hair.. it has been a struggle sticking with a particle “hairstyle”. What I mean by that is: I chop off all my hair and then nine months later I find myself scrolling through pictures and I come across a picture with my long hair and I think to myself “my hair looked great long… why did I ever chop it all off!?” Plus, it is expensive to maintain short hair anyways (especially if you color it as well). So let’s talk about the history of my hair for a while.

My natural hair color is considered a dark golden blonde and my hair is quite fine (and absolutely no body to it), however, I am told that I actually have a lot of it (I say otherwise, but apparently hair dressers know best). When I was younger, I typically kept my hair rather long and unruly (my mother usually trimmed my hair and that was weather permitting so it got rather straggly looking at times). Around the age of 10 or 11 I decided that side bangs were the thing to have—so I went to a salon and got those. No one warned me that I have a natural cowlick and when you have one of those, side bangs do not work; your bangs ends up splitting where you do not want them to.  It took me probably a year of “side bangs” to realize that I had a cowlick. Lesson learned; bangs and cowlicks do not work well. At one point, I did have my haircut roughly about chin length but I do not recall the exact time period—I did not maintain the length and immediately grew out my hair again.

At some point, I discovered a flat iron and used it daily (sometime between 12-16 years of age, I think). You may ask why? Your hair is naturally straight! Well, my hair is mostly straight but it tends to flip out oddly (in my opinion) so I used a flat iron to make the ends completely straight.

The year I turned eighteen, I went in a completely different direction with my hair: I decided to get my haircut rather short (about 3-4 inches above my shoulders; I have a slightly long neck so it was not THAT short) and in an angled cut (shorter in the back, longer in the front). I also started having lighter blonde highlights put in my hair at that time as well. I maintained this “look” for a good 3 years and my hair kept on getting blonder and blonder (I totally thought it was a more “grown up” look for me and I needed all the help I could get in that department).

Near the middle of 2013, my hair started to break off a little but I did not realize that it was happening (I just thought my hair was really tangled at the crown and fuzzy looking). In September of 2013, I had realized that my hair was looking rather ridiculous with all of those super light highlights on the top layers and then BAM! my natural hair color underneath (it was not looking pretty, let me tell ya). I then decided that I would start coloring my whole head of hair to hopefully bring more balance throughout my hair. Well, that was not my brightest move as my hair started to break off even more. At that point, I started debating on going back to my natural hair color. It was hard to decide to or not because I was afraid that it would be a complete nightmare to get to my natural hair color and I did not want to sport what I call “the “crack whore look” as I fondly refer to as having super dark roots and really blonde ends—it should not be a desirable look, people (no offense if you like that look).

In December of 2013 (if you have not noticed… I get my hair done every 3 months like clockwork), I took the plunge and made my first step toward going back to my natural hair color. My hairdresser and I decided to color my hair darker than my natural hair color since the color would fade and we were hoping that it would then blend into my natural roots. It did not quite happen as we thought because the color faded more than we hoped but we ended up with a fairly nice “ombre” effect without even trying (thank goodness, that look is currently “in”). I have not colored my hair since then and have been growing it out and the breakage that was basically around my whole crown is almost at chin length and blends fairly well into the rest of my longer hair. I continue to get 1-3 inches cut off the ends every 3 months to get closer to evening out the breakage layers. So that is the current history of my hair.

Current state of my hair

So you may wonder… Abbie, why did you just tell us the history of your hair? Well, you see... over the New Year, I was browsing through this blog and some other older pictures of myself with short, blonde hair, and I started thinking “OH! I miss that super blonde, short hair!” So here we go… the vicious cycle continues and I found it rather humorous and decided to share it with you (this decision came while in the shower; where great thoughts are born).

Okay, even though I am having these thoughts about how nice my hair looked then, I am determined not to go down that route again. I mean, my hair ended up breaking off (probably because it is so fine) and it is so expensive to keep it up!  I mean, I had to buy special shampoos and conditioners for colored hair, when my hair started breaking off I had to invest in some good Keratin shampoos and conditioners, plus hair masks, and leave-in sprays to get my comb through my tangled blob of damage. The savings are crazy when you think about it… so I am quite sure I will talk myself out of this one.

Do you ever go back and forth on how you like your hair? Please let me know in the comments below!