Red Hair!

So I like red hair. I started this post in April and was compiling images of pretty redheads long before that, drooling over their hair. When I was little and read Anne of Green Gables, I decided that I wanted to have blond, red, or black hair. I guess I didn't quite realize that only left out brown hair, which is beautiful too. I was born with black hair, then it turned super blond (really freakishly--I still suspect I was somehow switched out with another baby around 12 months), and the blond slowly darkened until recently when it's become a kind of light brown, sometimes blond. Sometimes it looks red in pictures or in the sun, which always pleases me a lot, so I thought I'd take the plunge and dye it.

Oh yeah, I found the cookbook image I think first through frolic, and it looks like it's published in Australia only but you can buy it here. I like how her red hair manages to look all rustic and laid-back.

A banner from Ruche, an online store with vintage-inspired and often eco-friendly good deals that impresses me a lot and I've blogged about before. I like her strawberry-blonde.
This is actress Piper Laurie, best known for her role in Twin Peaks, a show that I like in theory but fall asleep during every time I actually try to watch it.
This is from an old Toast catalogue, whose images were SO GORGEOUS that I ordered it from the UK and brought it with me for airplane reading on a trip. I was actually looking at it last night too. Some people think its weird to re-read catalogues, but I really don't get bored looking at the good ones.
It looks like I found this on daydream lily but I think it may be from some street style blog? Also, I love her bangs. LOVE THEM.

This is the super-beautiful Alison from the band A Fine Frenzy. I first saw her in this awesome video called Lost Things. I suggest you take a look. She's so pretty it makes me kinda sick.
Oops, there she is again. If you'll forgive me, I kinda tend to obsess. The photo is by Angela Kohler who made the video I linked to above, which is cool and dream-like fantastical magical and stop-motion and you should watch now if you didn't before, ok?
This is some model, shot by Gabor Jurina and found on Dustjacket Attic.

Ok! So it comes as a shock to no one that there are a lot of beautiful redheads out there. Since Jessica Rabbit (and probably before), red hair has been a blaring sign that says SEXY. I've never really been one for blaring signs, but I feel like a change and think I might be able to make it work for me. My grandpa had red hair, and I've got the ridiculously pale Scandinavian skin, so I decided to finally try.

I'm always super-wary of chemical dyes and like to be all eco-friendly and stuff, so I looked into a lot of natural dyes before deciding to use henna. Using websites like this and this, and asking Claire who has used henna on her dark hair before (but didn't want to right before her wedding, although that would probably be the proper Uzbek thing to do), I decided to buy some at an Indian imports store. I lucked out and got a ride to Devon Ave (where all the Indian/Pakistani stores and restaurants are in this city and is super far from my house) but wasn't prepared to choose a brand, and ended up grabbing a packet of "instant henna" which later research revealed to be not real henna and probably suspect. So, I pestered everyone I knew with a car until I got another ride up there and bought some Jamila brand henna (I also got weird herbal Emirati toothpaste and a huge cheap box of tea). It's not the "body art quality" that the henna enthusiasts say is necessary/preferred, but it's also not a "henna hair dye" that promises a color other than red (which means: suspicious unnamed chemicals--ugh, I hate it when people harbor a blanket suspicion of "chemicals:" chemicals are in everything! but some hair dye chemicals really are quite harsh and can dry out your hair and give you a rash). So last night, following the recommended recipes from the internet, I mixed it up with some lemon juice, and today I'm going to add some other stuff (tea, paprika, something to make it not smell like hay) and put it in after work (it takes hours for the dye to "release," and then it has to sit in your hair for hours. T says it sounds like I'm cooking up some crack.) I got Princess Mononoke from the library so I guess we can watch that while I let it do it's thing.

I've almost never changed my appearance in a major way, and when I do (cutting bangs, ear piercing, shorter haircut) it usually takes me months to decide and obsess over, so thanks, friends, for listening to all my self-centered ramblings on this hair topic.