By Ken Lass
It was like, one day I just looked in the mirror and there it was. I had a head full of gray hair! How could this happen? How could this sneak up on me? Guess I never paid much attention to what was going on up there. I looked like I was over seventy years old.
Ken Lass, Tribune columnist
Of course, I actually am over seventy years old, but that doesn’t mean I want to look like it. This was serious. Something had to be done. After all, I felt blessed to still have hair. And as long as that was true, it might as well enhance my appearance, not detract from it. All of my life I’ve heard people say that guys with gray hair look “distinguished”. Which to me is just a kinder way to say older than dirt.
Apparently there are no bounds to my vanity, because I made the big decision. I was going to dye my hair. My first inclination was to see a hair stylist and let a professional do the deed. Then I found out how much they charge. Turns out the cost of trying to look younger will not only change your hair from gray to dark, it will also change the color of your bank account from black to red. How do women afford to do this? The cost of being beautiful is ugly.
No, I was going to have to do this the hard way. I was going to have to do this myself. I’d seen the TV commercials for Just For Men. Those guys made it look simple and easy. Surely a TV ad would never try to deceive me. So I ventured to the drug store and nervously approached the hair care aisle.
Wow. There are a lot of products out there. Upon finding the men’s hair dye section, I immediately encountered my first unexpected dilemma. I just wanted brown. Plain, old brown. But here was light brown, medium brown and dark brown. Which one to buy? All three of the boxes seemed to have the same profile picture of some slick dude running his fingers through his hair. I’ll bet he didn’t have to do this by himself.
I decided to split it down the middle and went with medium brown. Got it home and meticulously read the instructions. Tear the little paper covering off the tube, screw on the comb applicator, gently squeeze the dye into the teeth of the comb, and run it through your hair. Easy enough, right? Of course not.
First of all, my gentle squeeze of the tube sent the goopy dye gushing over the comb like a tidal wave. Before I could get it up to my hair, it had dripped into the sink, on to my towel and run down my hand and arm. When I finally got it going through my hair, it ran down the side of my head and on to the top of my ear lobe. I looked like somebody had hit me in the face with a mud pie.
At that point, It took me a few minutes to realize this was dye. It was designed to stain. I needed to get this stuff off my face and arms before it dried on and took the appearance of a biblical skin disease. After some desperate dabbing and washing, I managed to clean up the spillage and finish the combing. I waited the specified ten minutes, then showered the goop off my head. As the water spiraled down into the drain, the dye left a wonderful brown film all over the tile floor. I dried my hair, which of course turned my towel into a cross between auburn and burnt sienna. Then it was time to scour the sink and the shower. Simple indeed. I vowed never again. Never. I’d rather go gray, even if I wind up looking like those Albert Einstein pictures.
But about two hours later, I slithered anxiously back into the bathroom and glanced at the mirror. I was stunned. The gray was mostly gone, except for a little by the temples. There were a few little streaks amongst the mostly darkish brown locks. It actually turned out…..not too terribly horrible. I looked, dare I say it, younger. Maybe, just maybe, all the effort and mess was worth it.
Now, about these gray eyebrows…..
