Being married to a man who definitely has his own style and is a trendsetter requires me as his wife to maintain that style integrity for our family, “After all we have an image to uphold,” my husband will say with a huge smile on his face. All kidding aside, I got my first pair of converse from him and my stepdaughter for Mother’s day in 2017 as I was the only family member without a pair of converse. Needless to say I have a few pairs now in a few different styles and colours.

After encouragement from my stylish, handsome husband, I completely changed my look. I cut my hair really short (shaved it) and dyed it platinum blonde. This was a really bold move for me and my style went from ‘sophisticated professional elegance’, to ‘bold, edgy and sassy’. I think my personality changed to match it- no wait a minute, my new hair style just matched my existing personality…lol… a welcome change from my previous lifestyle. I love it and I have never looked back!

It took me about six months to get comfortable with cutting my hair off. I looked at thousands of images and hair colours on the internet. I finally found the look I wanted and I captured the image in my phone. I took the picture into a hair dresser and asked her to cut and colour my hair to that image. Five hours later we were done and I loved the result. I also felt great about donating my hair for a wig for a cancer patient. That is why it was braided and cut close to my scalp. This was almost six years ago.

In 2018, I moved to Sherwood Park and found a great hairdresser at a high end salon that could do my hair. Going from a level 4 brown to a level 10 platinum blonde is not an easy task for any hairdresser. Not only to get the right colour without brassiness but not damaging your hair in the process is definitely a feat not to be taken lightly. In my case, it takes a long time to get my hair done, 3-5 hours out of a work day. This is hard to manage when you run multiple companies and have a lot of family responsibilities. In addition because it takes so long to get my hair done and there is a lot of product required to bleach my hair out as my hair requires two applications every time, it usually costs me in excess of $350.

So in order to get the best bang for my buck, I had a pattern, I would get my hair bleached every two months and get a cut in between and by a cut I mean have my sides and back of my head shaved. Spending $2200 on hair each year is a lot for me to spend and it is solely because of the upkeep of the bleaching. I had to make the best use and spread it out as much as possible. In addition, every time I went to the hairdressers to get my hair bleached my scalp would get burnt so badly that for three days I would have festering blisters and I couldn’t brush or wash my hair until my scalp healed. At one point Mat was worried about me and my scalp and said maybe you should go back to your natural colour if your scalp is getting burnt to maintain this look. I explained to him about how woman are regarding fashion, the lengths we will go to maintain beauty. For example, we hurt our feet by earing high heels that kill and we suffer the pain to get the colour we want….(as I am writing this, now I am thinking or do we?)…

Anyways…back to my story – now, let me make this clear, my hairdresser researched all kinds of products to put on my scalp to stop it from burning, every time I saw her she had a different product to try to see if it helped. In addition she only ever used 20 volume peroxide. I deduced that because the product had to sit so long on my head, that is why my scalp got burnt.

I had been going to my hair stylist for all these years with that pattern (6 bleaches per year and 6 cuts in between per year). Over the last year, I noticed that she kept trying to get me to book every six weeks instead of 8 weeks, but I carried on with my 8 weeks up until February of 2022, when I had a disturbing conversation with my hair stylist. She announced to me that if I didn’t start coming every 4 weeks (once a month), then she was no longer going to bleach my hair. I had two options, if I wanted to keep it platinum;

1.) I had to come every month to bleach it out or

2.) if I was not going to come every two months, she was going to streak to make it easier on her.

She proceeded to say that it is too difficult to lift the colour and not potentially get banding and she will no longer be responsible for how it turns out. I was very confused because it always turned out great so what was the problem? I have been happy or the last 4 years why would that change…but it was her that decided it was time to change.

I got home from the hair dressers that day a bit upset and I told Mat about my experience. I said, “I am already spending $2200 per year on my hair at 6 times per year. I am not prepared to spend $4400 for 12 times per year just to make it easier on my hairdresser. I don’t think she realizes what she was asking of me. By her request of coming 12 times per year, meant six more times to have my scalp burnt and again, I was just not prepared to do that. In addition, I have had my hair streaked for over 30 years and I was quite enjoying the platinum blonde as a change. I am not prepared to get it streaked darker either. I loved my platinum blonde. So now I was very unsettled about what to do.

After having this troubling discussion with my hairdresser and going into a bit of panic mode at the thought of having to find another hair stylist or give in to her request and go every month toget my hair bleached — but then something inside of me told me to go research doing your own hair. So I did.

At night time just before I would go to sleep I started watching all kinds of Youtube videos on bleaching your hair. The days and weeks pass. Everyday my roots were growing. The next thing I knew months had started to go by.

After months and months of research, at which time I still hadn’t got my hair done by my hair stylist, my roots had grown out so much. I think there may have been 4 months of growth by now. I needed to find a tutorial that could deal with that kind of root growth.

During these 4 months, I also had been researching bleaching products and hair shavers. I found an amazing store called Sally Beauty, that sells all kinds of professional quality hair care products.

Then it happened….I finally found it! The perfect video to deal with my hair and all my concerns around bleaching it out as well as a step by step tutorial on how to do it yourself (DIY). This amazing video tutorial teaches you how to bleach your own hair with months of root growth. Not only that, in order to protect your hair and scalp she shows you how to cover you head, hair and scalp with coconut oil. I was in heaven and I couldn’t wait to try it!

Here is the link to that video:

After numerous conversations with the Sally Beauty sales consultants and buying the products that I wanted to try, one early morning in May of 2022, I tried it.

I followed the video to the letter and Wow! This was the first time bleaching my hair that my scalp didn’t burn and I have done it numerous times since then and not burnt my scalp. The only thing that changes is sometimes I change my toner like I did yesterday, from violet to pink. I am extremely pleased with the result.

Now I cut my hair every two weeks or so myself instead of going to the hair dresser. I can cut it more often because I don’t have to plan for it and make an appointment. I get up in the morning and decide if it is too long and I can cut my hair in 20 minutes that morning. I use a professional shaver by wahl, called a Peanut. Just ‘Peanut’ even makes it fun to use.

So in reflection, was it about the money for my hair stylist, was it about the time or was it about her pride of not liking the end result (in her mind) because I loved it? To this day I don’t know, but all I do know is that she gave me an ultimatum with two options. In the process of making the decision, I found a third option that is now working better for me and that unfortunately for her no longer includes going to her for her services. She went from having a regular client spending $2200 per year to now having an x client spending 0$ per year. But it gets better for me and worse for her. In a year and a half of doing my own hair, I have not burnt my scalp once and I am using 40 volume peroxide and bleach. Although I bleach my hair twice at one time it is only left on for 20 minutes each bleaching session and I have never damaged my hair or my scalp. You can see from the photo how shiny and healthy my hair is.

If you are in a customer service field do your really know what your customers needs are? Are you willing to lose revenue by demanding they spend double the amount of money with you per year?

So the moral of this little story, change can be frightening and challenging, but sometimes it brings with it amazing gifts. If you are being presented with choices or ultimatums you don’t like, don’t be afraid to research and explore different options that may look nothing like the original choices. Be inquisitive, be daring, be willing to try something new. You just might be pleasantly surprised to discover talents you didn’t even know you had and results you never anticipated.