Like many women, I'm one who, for much of her adult life, indulged in buying makeup and getting my hair done regularly, as well as stocking up on perfumes and scented lotions, buying cute outfits galore along the way - all the things that "girly girls" like to do.
It was not uncommon for me, for instance, to turn to eBay when Victoria's Secret canceled my favorite scent collection, so I could make sure I didn't run out of their body washes and sprays anytime soon. Same for my most cherished lipstick colors, which inevitably would be discontinued to the dismay of loyal (and understandably outraged) consumers.
When I hit my late 20s, my naturally blonde hair started looking like a more dull, dishwater blonde color, so the momster encouraged me to start coloring it, as she did during her heyday. For most of my life to that point, my hair had been a pale sun-kissed blonde color...
Yours truly, at a time when I was MUCH more fashionable... ;-) pic.twitter.com/bsJyj3Glsu
— Sister Toldjah 💙 (@sistertoldjah) July 26, 2025
So the hair color saga began. The first few tries were trial and error, mostly error, with the very first one - a "Frost and Tip Kit" experiment with mom - having me look like Ric Flair, complete with the dark roots to the point that if you turned the lights off in a room at night, you could still see my hair.
It wasn't a good look. I didn't want to leave the house for a while.
Eventually, I got it toned down, and over the next several decades, I found off-the-shelf colors I liked (including a strawberry blonde one during a short-lived phase), but I could never find the exact color I wanted - though one time, around 2017-2018, I got pretty close.
Ultimately, I got sick of coloring my hair (though I laugh at it now, it wasn't fun at the time - but I hated paying for the salon to do it), so around the time that middle age and the pandemic hit, I stopped.
A few days ago, I had just finished drying my hair and styling it when I took a closer look at it in the mirror.
What in the heck?
Unbelievable!
After years and years of trying to get that "perfect" hair color (for me), I finally had it, some five or so years after I stopped coloring it.
My hair is now the color I've always wanted it, thanks to a combination of the sun, letting it grow out, and the sprinkles of soft gray throughout, thanks to what I very charitably like to call graceful aging. My sister had been saying this for a few months, but I had always thought she was just being nice.
When mom and I went to her oncology appointment on Wednesday for CT scan results and labwork, she told me it looked like I'd colored my hair. Apparently, she was just seeing it, too. A very sweet nurse assistant at the doctor's office, who was used to seeing me either in bad hair day hats or with the "messy bun" hairstyle associated with third-day hair, did a double-take when she saw me and said, "I simply must know the hair color you used!"
Isn't that something? I spent some hard time in my younger years, trust me, to bottle color my hair in hopes of trying to make it look naturally cool ash blonde, when what it actually took was just waiting a few years to let it get that way naturally.
Not sure how long this will last, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can, a simple pleasure in life considering all that mom and I have going on.
But does it give me that "sophisticated" look I once sought? Of course not. And that's okay, because looking sophisticated is way overrated anyway. ;-)
