Le Sigh.

My hair has often been a sore point for me.

When I was in primary school, my grandmother used to gaze at my luxurious, long, black hair and will say, "Your hair can be used for shampoo advertisements" as she stroked the silky, glossy strands.

Come secondary school, hormones came along and brought its friends, Acne & Insecurity, into my wretched adolescent existence. And hormones ravaged my hair and left it unrecognizable. What was once silky & black is now just... a mess of black wires. Truly, with each painful year, the hair simply exploded. It was unstoppable: black, thick, unruly, wiry, coarse, untameable. I gave up trying to have a flattering hairstyle, for verily, hope deferred makes the heart sick.

In junior college, I found a hairstyle that won't make me look too much like a mop and pretty much stuck with it for the rest of my life, as a JC friend so unkindly and bluntly pointed out to me ("Hey Quirkie! Wah your hairstyle never change from JC days hor!"). Oh sure, I tried a different style every now and then; I even had a dalliance with the rebonding trend; but at the end of the day, it was still the boring short cropped layered slope.

My church... *shuddering sob* A place of respite & acceptance? They coined this nickname for me: Bush. Nope, nothing to do with America, everything to do with botany.

And the colour of my hair. It's an intense black. A did-you-dye-your-hair-black?-black. So if you have tres noir hair that is also over-abundant, you get this very hard and harsh look without even trying (have I mentioned my thick, black eyebrows?). It wasn't until I tried colouring my hair once after my graduation that I realised how a softer hair-colour can make a person look friendlier and less sallow.

A few months ago, I tried colouring my whole head a reddish-orange tinge and it worked pretty well for me. I felt more confident and looked less harsh. But you know how it is... hair colour fades, black roots grow out. So, yesterday I decided it was time for a new colour treatment, seeing how I've got 2 weddings to attend pretty soon. I chose a reddish colour again, seeing how it worked for me the last time.

As the hairdressor washed off the dye, I stared at the mirror and a pale-faced punk with bright red hair stared back at me.

This morning, my colleague did a double take when he saw me. He went over to my other colleague and said...
He: Quirkie did something to her hair.
She: Okay, is it a good or bad thing?
He: It's... attractive.
She: So it's a good thing lah?
He: You can say that... but attractive also means it attracts a lot of attention.

So far, an aunty in the office has been merciless on her relentless attacks on my hair. "Ah lian! Ah lian! When Intuition see you, he'll be like, Wah! Who's this new girl I'm dating? Looks like ah lian!"
And then she said, "Wah, with this colour you must be careful about what you wear... Wait you wear not nice, people say you aunty. You go market later people call you 'aunty'!" -____-b
"Eh, what is this colour you dyed? Burgandy? You must tell me, so that next time I go hairdressor, I'll know what colour not to ask for..."
*whispers to another colleague* "I want to pour my black coffee on her hair so that it will turn black..."

Woe is me, for I am a girl of unkind hair, and I work among a people of unkind lips :(