Bang Bang

When I was a pre-teen one of the most important things ever to happen to me was choosing my own haircut. Not that I couldn’t have done it before, but the fact is being a kid meant that fashion and hairstyles weren’t among my subjects of interest. I was much more concerned about dancing (maybe this ability was all spent back then, leaving me with no skills whatsoever in the mistery of gracefully moving at the beat of music), reading fairy tales and playing with friends.

What put a definite end to my childhood, as I now view it, was the fact that I didn’t have bangs anymore. That and the longer hair. Following the trend, I went to the salon hoping to get this:

Looking at it now it's hard to believe such a thing was ever on trend and the desire of many of the pre-teens back then. Nonetheless, it represented a more adult face and style to me.

(Now, I feel compelled to clarify though that this wasn't what I got. The kind of locks I wanted had its tips much more curved towards the inside and my knowledge in styling was even poorer than it is now. That is to say, it failed to occur to me that no hairstyle on TV, movies or any publicity photo in the whole world is completely natural and that there's a parafernalia ranging from heating tools to special oils, waxes and sprays, not to mention celebrity hairstylists, always working to ensure those effects we all wish for.)

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Having gone through adolescence, I soon came back to bangs. I decided it suited me better, event though I have changed my hairstyle quite a few times since then.

Recently, I've been seeing some really short bangs with a particular interest. It never occurred to me to have those, but suddenly I was in absolute love with all that and couldn't wait any longer.

I now walk around exhibiting my all time shortest bangs.

Pastel

Ever since I saw Kelly Osbourne and that hair of hers my heart skipped a beat and my brains started a weird quest into rethinking hair colors.

First, though, a moment of recomposure was needed. After all, I’m not big in following celebrities, so the last memory I had of Kelly was of her in that reality show, when she was something like this:

Apart from the shock of having to reorganize my thought into accepting - and loving - gray and lilac as hair colors for the young and beautiful (isn't it awesome to write that as if I were a E! host?), there was also that moment of realizing time has past and the rebellious teenagers are now adults.

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Since I was a teenager (and I mean right after I stopped listening to Backstreet Boys and the likes) I have an unfulfilled dream of dying my hair a different color.

In the late 90′s and early 00′s though that was very much a clubber thing. Yes, remember that? And in my little giant conservative corner of the world being a clubber was also being on drugs. Not to mention that back then I wasn’t really speaking English and the internet wasn’t a place where you could find virtually everything as it is now. Back then we didn’t even have Google and videos were too much for that dialed connection. So information about where to get products and how to actually dye the hair were pretty hard to come by.

I did as I could: some kind of blue mascara used for coloring a section of my hair, which during the day turned dry and emanated that characteristic aspect of dirtiness, much to the horror of my parents (who never mentioned a word againts me doing this).

But time goes by and we change. I tried being a red haired once, only to end up with almost no color showing and after a month or so a hair resembling to something that had been burned. I let it go.

And then I start seeing this:

That old feeling was suddenly back. It was buried in a shallow grave, that's for sure, but still. I've been obsessed with pastel blue and lilac over the past few weeks and can't stop browsing the web on how to achieve such a wonderful hair color.

For our heart's delight, now we have YouTube and an incredible amount of blogs with DIY guides with a number of products and techniques. Here are some links:

- Annika from The Pineneedle Collective showed how she achieved a pastel pink back in 2012 (which makes me feel I'm behind on this trend - it would be something new if I weren't).

- Before dying a pastel color you have to have a very very light blond, preferrably white hair. I don't remember who posted this, but anyway, here you can find a guide on how to have this much sought after shade.

- Finally, here's an awesome piece about the journey for a blue hair. I find this one to be particularly interesting as it is from someone with a very dark hair (just as mine) and a very old wish (again, like myself) to dye the locks an unusual color.

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I'll probably be going to a salon tomorrow for a simple dip-dye (little bit scared of dying the whole thing at once) in blue, let's see how it turns out.

Have you ever dyed your hair a fantasy color? Do you want to do so? What color do you like the most? Tell me your story!