How I learned to stop worrying and killed a Smurf.

The Saturday before last I strolled into the salon my cousin works at and sat down in her chair. I was badly in need of a cut - I'd let my bob grow out a bit and the back was starting to drive me nuts. We chatted a bit and then I asked her the question I'd been considering since I'd booked the appointment.

"Can we bleach this?"

She looked me over, considered, and said, "Let me check my time."

Luck was in my favour, and soon enough I was sitting there with my scalp burning in that itchy, not-quite-horrible way anyone who has ever stripped their colour knows.

I've been dying my hair black for years - it's my default. As such I couldn't exactly go blonde, but my cousin bleached me out pretty good. (Took two sessions.) We then slathered on a deep cobalt blue.

Yes, at 32 years old, I have blue hair.

 Here are things I'd forgotten about having unnaturally-hued hair:

- Your bathtub will take on a new shade. Mine looks like I dismembered a Smurf in it.

- If you're like me and you figure you may as well go all the way, you'll spend time in the drugstore holding eyeliners up to your hair to try and match your eyebrows. (Shadows tends to have sparkle, so they're useless.)

- Your makeup routine may need adjusting. The blue tends to highlight the circles under my eyes (which I swear get worse every year) and also wash me out a bit. I actually had to buy blush.

- You will spend a few days adjusting to the looks you will naturally draw.

- Little kids will LOVE your new look.

So why did I dye my hair blue? I love being a brunette, but I've wondered since hacking my hair off what it might look like lighter. So this is basically Step One in that direction - once it grows out some, I'll talk to my cousin about taking it a bit lighter. Eventually I'd like to see if I can't rock a pale colour or possibly even a platinum. This may not work with my skin tone, but we'll see.

In the meantime, I am finally used to the bright colour in the mirror every morning. My biggest concern when I dyed it was that I would look too young - like I was trying to be a teenager again. Thus far that doesn't seem to be an issue, thankfully.

I realise that I may come off as a very shallow person, as I tend to talk about glamour and the power of visuals a lot, but I'm a Libra, what did you expect?  More seriously, I find it continually fascinating how our self image is entirely malleable and the past year has been an exercise in shifting perspective for me personally.

Every so often you need to shake up your image of yourself. 

Right, Creepy Tiki Mug?

Blue hair means relearning not to give a fuck. It means taking myself a bit less seriously. It means not settling into patterns because that's how I feel I should be. I can get locked into ideas of myself, and while they don't tend to make me miserable, they can limit my experience. Drastically altering my dumb hair colour proves, in a weirdly tangible way, that I can do shit I might not usually. I'm taking a can-can class next month. I'm seriously considering putting together an occult group. My body continues to become stronger, and my brain seems eager to catch up.

I encourage anyone reading this to do something just a little bit different with themselves, if only for a day. You might not shift your whole paradigm, but you might open yourself to the idea of such.