Crime scene

No theft, no death...unless you count the person who dyed.

I bought a box of one of those hair color rinses back in the fall. It was the kind that claimed to wash out in 28 washes. It was just the sort of commitment and maintenance free (oh and cheap) pick me up I was game to try, as the gray hairs were going beyond what I could yank out each day. I felt like such a big girl bringing that box of ammonia-free promises into the house. Once I read the directions, I felt like a five year old. I had to ponder the possibility of doing an allergy check, plus figure out the logistics of how to actually get that secret potion onto my hair.

I did what I usually do when faced with such challenges, and called a friend. She assured me that I could do without the skin test, and that maybe it would be easier to just have her put the dye on my head the next time I was at her house. Plan in motion. Round one went well, and I marveled over why I hadn't done such a thing sooner. I did not miss those wayward strands of gray hair anywhere near as much as one would have thought, based on my initial hesitation.

I am not sure if exactly 28 hair washings had gone by, but as promised, the camouflage was gone. My friend, L'Oreal and I did not seem to all meet up together at the same time, so I found myself flying solo staring down the plastic gloves and foreboding directions once again. After one last phoned in pep talk, I got to work.

The first moment of panic came when I noticed that the dye was a yellowish creamy color...for my nearly black hair...hmmm. I knew I could not have botched the one step directions to that point, so I carried on. Before I knew it, I was cotton swabbing off the careless blotches of dye that I had gotten on my cheek, hairline, sink, cabinet and ears. I am sure less floppy gloves would've made all the difference. I had started off with the area that was most obvious to me every morning, so I knew I had enough product there, plus it had been on the longest.

My daughter's cookies had twenty minutes to bake and this stuff only had to be in my hair for ten minutes. I am not exactly sure where all of the time went, but there was the buzzer going off while I was still a towel frocked mess of sorts. I ran downstairs to tend to my portion of that cookie making day, then quickly retreated. I did not have it in me to subject my daughter, son and his two friends to whatever mess I was going to make by trying to rinse in the kitchen sink.

I decided that the tub in the children's bathroom was better suited than my own bathroom sink for the rinsing portion of my program. When the water finally ran clear, I towel-turbaned myself and carried on. That moment of truth when I flipped my head back upright after blow drying was less than satisfactory. There were all of those same gray hairs pointing at me (and laughing, of course). Not only had I tried so hard, but also knew from past experience, with the same product, that far better results were to be expected.

Later in the day, upon wandering into the children's bathroom again for some laundry, I saw the crime scene. There were purplish tell-tale finger smudge type signs all over...the inside of the tub, the edge of it, the outside of the tub, the floor. Of course then I had a moment of panic when I tried to clean up the mess, wondering if any of the ingredients in the dye would have a reaction with my bathroom cleaner spray causing toxic fumes...of course that was where my mind went. Clearly I did a fabulous job dyeing everything...except my hair.

(This is the spot on my bathroom wall. Do you think it will come off in 28 washes?)