Thanks for the Memory, COVID-19
I made a vow five years ago. This weekend, I broke it.
The summer between Charli’s 7th and 8th grade years, she wanted to dye her hair bright pink. I figured why not — it will all wash out by the time school starts in the fall. We used a product called Splat. It was all fun and games until I discovered the warning on the box was not an exaggeration — “This product is a direct dye and will stain.” Try as I might, there was no way to confine the magenta goop to Charli’s long strands of hair. It took forever to work the dye all the way through, and undesirable stainage did occur. I vividly recall making a solemn oath, “I will NEVER use this stuff again.”
Despite the hassle, her hair turned out really cute. NOTE: To those contemplating a temporary fun hair color, this one did not fade before school started. Ultimately, she ended up having to cut her hair REALLY short (think PeeWee Herman) and dye it dark brown (think Elvis) to hide the rest of the “unnatural” dye color which was not allowed at her school.
This weekend, Charli asked me to help her color her hair. School rules have always prevented her from dyeing her hair during the school year, but because of COVID-19, hair color is a non-issue on the same level as wearing pajamas to class. She showed me the box — Blue Envy by Splat. Apparently I succumbed to the same type of amnesia that occurs after hours of agonizing labor — “it wasn’t that bad” — and I said, “Sure!”
First, you have to bleach the hair you plan on dyeing. Thankfully, Charli wanted an ombre look, not the whole head. Then comes the actual dye. The minute I started to apply the electric blue goop, I had flashbacks. The further in I got, the more vivid my memories became. This was the stuff I had vowed never again to use! And yet, here we were — Charli’s azure-stained ears, face, neck and arm before me while I perched on the white ceramic step of my bathtub, smeared blue on both sides from where I would drop the slime-covered comb in order to use my gloved hands to work the dye into Charli’s hair evenly. This process took about an hour. I pulled off the oversized plastic gloves, stuffed them into the Splat box to go in the trash, and heaved a sigh of relief. The worst, I thought, was over.
When it came time to rinse out the dye, we strategically opted for the deep laundry room sink with the spray faucet. Charli suspended herself in a backbend into the sink, and I began rinsing. It was like I was watching Niagara Falls right there in my own laundry room. Unending torrents of blueness poured from Charli’s hair. When the water turned a lighter shade of blue and I was certain that Charli’s further prolonged Cirque du Soleil-esque posturing over the sink would cause her irreparable harm, I had her go finish rinsing her hair in the shower. It took a one-day soaking in Comet and Lysol with bleach along with some serious elbow grease to return the laundry room sink to its previous white state.
Immediately upon completion of project Blue Envy (which by the way yields a gorgeous deep blue hair color but leaves skin a distinct purple), two life lessons presented themselves. 1) Keep the gloves and use them in the rinse phase unless you want your hands to look like Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubby. 2) Never miss an opportunity to make a memory.
Despite looking like my fingertip circulation has been cut off and despite the time spent applying, combing, squishing, cleaning up, and worrying all the while that I was surely making a mess of Charli’s beautiful hair…I would willingly forgo my original vow and do it again. Some memories are just worth making, no matter the mess.
