I was 16 years old and desperately wanted to do something radical with the colour of my hair for the first time. I’d tried a few wacky hairstyles over the years, Mohawks, flat-tops, shaved bald and the “bowl cut”, but had never played around with colour as that wasn’t allowed at school. Well, I’d just finished my last year of school and it was time to play.
Being into a wide variety of rock music, including punk rock, I decided that a nice electric blue would do the trick. After checking out the local supermarkets and drug stores I selected the brand I thought was the best choice. I’m not sure of the name, but it claimed to produce a vibrant, long lasting electric blue colour. To ensure the most vibrant color I purchased two bottles and headed to my Aunts house.
I checked all the boxes for a perfect result – light hair, clean hair and had recently had my mop head of hair shorn to a short and spiky style. Test strands looked good, time to apply. Following a nice even coating, on went the heat cap, towel wrapped around to trap in warmth and the constant application of heat from a hairdryer, just as the instructions stated. Thirty five minutes and one rinse later, time to see the results.
Aaaaargh! It had all gone wrong. There was no vibrant blue, just a purple haze akin to Phyllis Pearce from Coronation Street (for those who don’t know she was an old lady with a buoyant, purple hued, perm). This wouldn’t work; something had to be done to fix this.
Another trip to the shops, this time to purchase the deep purple next to the originally purchased blue. If I already had the purple haze, then add purple, seems logical, right? Wrong. After following the instructions to the letter, including leaving the colour on for an extra 15 minutes to ensure deeper penetration, I braved a look in the mirror to view the final result – GREY. Sixteen years old and with a full head of grey hair. The only option left was to shave my head. It would be 12 years before I attempted any type of hair colouring again, and that next experimentation would be with peroxide. While the results there were also interesting, they were not as horrifying to me as this first experience.