Tuesday, November 23, 2010

L'Oreal 5.3 Fiasco

A few weeks post-ACL reconstruction and feeling a little more human, I got a wild hair to, well, color my hair. Freshen up my look. Brighten my hair for winter. My lack of tanning and current super-dark black color gave me a bit of a goth look so on my way home from physical therapy, I stopped at the local market, bought myself two L'Oreal color/highlight kits in my favorite color combo, 5.3, and headed home to update my do. $30. Instant update.

I let the dogs out when I get home and they were thrilled to get out and have their dinner. Then Ruby, as she does, stayed glued to my side while I started step one of the hair color (the 5 in the 5.3).

That's when the fiasco started.

So I'm standing in front of the bathroom mirror in the old t-shirt with the rubber gloves on, squirting my head with color from the plastic bottle. Ruby is lying directly behind me, in case I should quickly try to escape. You can't be too careful apparently. At one point, as I was squirting color on the back of my head, there was a small bubble in the bottle. I squeezed extra hard to loosen it and heard the sound. I turned to Ruby to see if I had gotten any on the carpet and all looked OK.

If you've ever colored your hair and spilled the goop on anything, you know where this is going.

I finish my hair, put it up in a clip and turn to see a number of blotches of hair color on the bathroom carpet. (I know, I know, it's really ridiculous that someone put carpet in the bathroom, but someone did.) See, it takes a good 5-10 minutes for the coloring solution to appear as anything but clear. So I'm pissed off that I've ruined the carpet, even though I hate the carpet and we plan to replace it...someday. I'm on my hands and knees with an old rag trying to clean up the mess, when Ruby walks in.

And I see this:


My apologies for not even getting the greatest picture of the mess.

As you can see, Ruby is speckled with L'Oreal 5 above her eyes, on her legs, and down both sides of her body. I've watched a lot of CSI, so I can recognize a spatter pattern when I see one. As best I can tell, she was directly behind me with her feet neatly in front of her and her face turned up to watch me when the shower came her way. I can even match spatter patterns on her sides to identical residue on the carpet (or vice-versa) like you would map the constellations. It had also splattered the black on her nose, turning it a rusty red color.

Of course, by the time I see it and have assessed the damage, the hair dye is completely dry. Set in. Permanent. On the dog AND the carpet.

To make matters worse, the hair color took on the dog and the carpet, but not so much on me. One emergency visit to Colorific and $109 later the next day, and all is well. But for about 12 hours there, it was hat-city for me and humiliation for my dog.


When I picked her up from daycamp the next week, the girls at the front counter said 'we love the spots' and said they had decided a young child with a Sharpie must have gotten to Ruby over the weekend. I fessed up. Just me and some hair color. Nobody else to blame. :)


As I sit here tonight, nearly two weeks and a bath later, Ruby's spots are just as bright. I honestly don't know if they will ever come out. I've thought about mixing up the highlighter kit to see if we can at least soften them but there's not way she'd ever sit still. And then we would probably just need new carpet in other rooms too.

On the flip side, my hair looks great. For only $139. Oy.

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Ruby at 5 weeks.

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