I was born with black silky crowning glory and they remained so for almost three decades till I changed my “colours”. 🤣
It was sometimes in mid nineties, when the advertisements of hair colours on TV and in print media caught my attention.
I had a liking for brown shades then. To have brown tinge on my hair, I had used henna with coffee in pre hair colour era. But henna didn’t suit my hairs and application was also not very convenient.
This advertisement from Wella hair colours caught my attention. The hair colours of models were inviting. I look at it as an easy way of makeover, and I need to change my looks very often as I get bored with same looks very fast. 😋
After contemplating for some time, I opted for light brown colour out of three colours available in those days – black, dark brown and light brown. No, there was not even a single grey streaks or white hairs in my crowning glory. That was all for the love of browns. 👩 It satisfied my desire of experimentation too.🙆
I was staying in Faridabad, a sleepy neighbouring town of capital city, New Delhi. Anything new in the market takes few months to reach Faridabad , if we compare its availability in New Delhi. Going to Delhi in those days was a weekly exercise for us. I got my first hair colour pack of Wella from Lajpat Nagar Market in South Delhi.
Slowly more brands and more colours had arrived on the scene. I have tried all crazy colours like violet, red , burgundy and sometimes lighter shades of brown (read blondes) across all available brands.It was very interesting to experience the “feel good” which colouring the hair brings along. Unfortunately, I do not have photographs of those quirky hair colours. No smart phones then. 🙁 But my young girl students went ga ga over my unconventional choices. This strength of youngster to accept new ideas (not necessarily about hair colour 😛) is the hope for bringing in change in the society. Interacting with young children is the reason, I love being a teacher.
Many of my neighbours have asked me to stop hair colouring so regularly as it will damage my hair. They were the ones who actually admired my hairs and my guts to be experimental.😜 Anyway, I continued and tried whatever new colours were introduced.
This went on non stop for 3 decades and somewhat more, changing colours every month. Sometimes,I felt like a chameleon 🦎. 😁😁
Coloured hair streaks never appealed me, though they are in trend for a long time now.
With such a regularity in coloring hairs, I had no idea about the real colours of my hairs . Are there any grey strands now, I wondered? On 1st January,2019, I decided to stop colouring my hair to know what is the actual colour of my crowning glory. Less than 10% of my hairs have greyed, which is very normal in fifties. The texture and shine points to healthy and well kept crowning glory.
Conclusion from my 30 years of hair colouring -Hair colours are good for hairs. The only precautions which I took was that I never repeated the brands. I always opted for different brands. Oiling and conditioning was also not very regular.
And then I saw, “Accidental Prime Minister”. Akshay Khanna with his grey hair as Sanjay Baro is the sole factor for me to decide against colouring my hair from now on.
It comes under the purview of aging gracefully, love yourself, self-love, be yourself…. blah blah. 😋
I have developed a bias against black hair in favour of white crowing glory.The grey hairs adds a mystic charm to personality.
A strong sense of racism has prevailed upon me and I have decided in favour of white. Is the “sickular” gang returning their awards for my racist thoughts? Just wondering.🙄😲🤔