red hair

Red hair is fire. Power. Passion.

Red hair is different
bizarre
intimidating.

It's beautiful.

It's flame with strands of goldenrod, crisp apples and cinnamon, kool-aid and grapes.

It whispers and screams to me.

And I've finally got it. At times, hair dying can definitely involve some role playing. I've thought red hair was sexy for so long and I only just dyed it a few weeks ago. Not only do I love my hair, with its new auburn tones and fire engine red highlights, but I feel if I was confident enough to dye my long blonde hair (which I also loved)... RED....

then maybe I'm as confident as the redhead in my mind...

Red hair is intoxicating. Don't underestimate its power.

I have red died hair as well, but I had the added problem of my natural hair color being dark brown. I didn't want to bleach my hair, so I decided to experiment with various dyes until I found one that went in relatively bright. Here are the things I have learned that may be of interest to others in my predicament:

• Off the shelf drug store dyes DO work, but you need to experiment until you find one that works well with your hair
• You may have heard of Manic Panic hair dye. It comes in very bright red, but it is also a pain in the ass. It washes out over the course of 6-8 weeks, and before you have showered a couple of times, it will run at the slightest contact with water. Also, it stains. Badly. If you are using it, be sure you have some Clorex spray on hand or you will have a red countertop and shower curtain.
• As far as drug store dyes go, I have found that Loreal's Intense Red Brown shade will give the most intense red in dark brown hair.
• Layering your colors is not bad. Find a good permanent red dye that will give you a red base, and then experiment with other permanents or semi-permanents over top of that, so you won't get wierd results as the dye fades.
• If you want to use temporary (one wash) dyes, I do not reccomend using spray on dye. It is sticky, it runs, and stains and it sucks. Use hair maskara. It combs into your hair, coats it very brightly, and will not run but will wash out with shampoo.

I hope that is helpful for anyone trying to dye brown hair red.

Blessing or curse? This seems to depend on your point of view.

Women with red hair are generally assumed to have some kind of exotic quality or fiery character, and this makes them appealing. Women by the busload dye their hair red, often (at least in my opinion) choosing truly garish shades. But if it works for them, well then who am I to complain?

I am a man with red hair. I therefore live in a completely different universe, one wherein boys with red hair are taunted throughout childhood and adolescence. My only consolation growing up was that my face was not covered in freckles, with which my redheaded brethren are too often doomed.

I'm going to beat you like a redheaded stepchild

Ever heard that expression? It just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I offer, for your consideration, a brief biographical retrospective from my formative years (excluding, for space reasons, the 8-9 million times I was called "red"):

• As a very young child, strange women in supermarkets would come up to me and tousle my hair, exclaiming various things bout how "pretty" my red hair was. This has left me with a deep-seated fear of strange women in supermarkets, presumably to my loss.
• In the third grade, a good friend of mine named Doug Wick told me that my hair was red because I had rusty brains. It really got to me at the time, but the truth is that that was by far the most clever of any of the slings and arrows.
• In the seventh grade, I alienated--for five years--a very nice girl named Betsy because I exploded when she called me "Red." In truth, she was asking me if I wanted "Bread?" but the damage was done.
• After my confirmation, a woman from our church (which was a congregation composed largely of Slovak immigrants) told me that redheads in Slovakia have historically been considered outcasts.

The list could go on and on. Eventually, people stopped harping on it, instead musing about whether my hair would turn pink as I go gray. Ha ha ha. Fuck you.

For the record, I now consider myself to have quite a nice head of hair. And I take comfort in the fact that, genetically speaking, I will likely not go bald. So, to my onetime detractors and their soon to be shiny heads: Ha ha ha. Fuck you.

I have read multiple times in my life that red hair was considered to be a sign of a witch (perhaps most recognizably in the fiction of Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches series). It portended magical ability and the strength of the fire within the person. While I bet this would tend to ostracize a person, it couldn't be all bad. But in much less mythic times it would acquire considerable negative connotations. A shame, because really red hair is a beautiful thing.

I cannot speak to the attractiveness red hair may impart to men, but there is something about a red haired woman. I have always found it alluring. Present to me a passably attractive redhead and I will inevitably grant her more attention than any other woman of more remarkable looks.

Maybe red hair fascinates me because, relatively speaking, it is rare (especially these days, when so many women are going for that blond-over-brown look). It provides an almost exotic flair.

All that said... sure enough - like a moth to a flame - I married a woman with wondrous red hair. In the winter, it drifts much towards brown. It becomes dark, shadowed almost as if rich burgundy under the lighter surface that flashes inviting hints of red highlights.

The summer is when it shines, though. As exposure to the sun prompts shifting in the shades (natural bleach?), the surface becomes a sparklingly golden-red. It has a radiance that dances over the roots - denied much of the sun - which hover under the surface.

And I can say, with some confidence, that I know Rook and have never called him "Red". I have never called my wife that either. Or "carrot top", or any other of the sundry options available. In fact I bristle when anyone else calls her these things. As does she. She has remarked many times that she has always wished her hair was not red, and she is glad that our daughter is not so cursed. This makes me sad, but as a simple man of plain brown hair, what do I know?