By Reem AlRumaithi
ABU DHABI – It has been difficult for me to overlook my anemia (a decrease in the number of red blood cells, or the amount of hemoglobin, in the blood) while growing up, mainly because it has been my mother’s great obsession. As Chris Turk from the American television sitcom “Scrubs” would say, she turns a grain into a heap almost instantly.
This all began when one day I fainted while taking a bath (which could be one of my most embarrassing moments yet). Because of this incident, my mom would have me regularly getting check-ups in the hospital and making sure I never miss a folic iron dosage.
This “event” took place six years ago when I was just about to start high school and as you all know that is the time when every girl wants to look her best and follow the latest fashion trends and whatnot. Now, like any normal girl, I wanted to dye my hair. As I mentioned previously, my mother tends to make a quite a deal out of small things, so obviously she did not allow it because my hair was already fragile due to low iron levels. The only thing I could get done was getting a few highlights. I obviously agreed; I mean it is at least something.
Flash forward to my first year in university, and I was again trying to convince my mom to let me dye my hair. I was not about to give up. I finally convinced her and dyed my hair a beautiful strawberry-blonde color. To my surprise, she loved it. She loved it so much she said it looked better than my dark brunette locks. She even went on to say that I should actually continue to dye my hair this exact shade. Now to me that was a bit extreme because I absolutely love change. However, at that time, I was pleased.
For the next year I continued to dye my roots as the hair started to peek out and every time things would go just fine. My hair was still somewhat healthy and both mom and I were satisfied. Come summer 2014 and boy I wanted change, so again I nagged and demanded I get my hair stripped of this boring color and get that new ombre look that everyone seems to be rocking. Mom half-heartedly agreed, and so I headed to the salon. I was very excited and looked forward to this brand-new look.
Little did I know what was in store for me next.
When we got to the hairdresser’s, I told her exactly what I wanted, and in my defense I showed her a picture of it too. Therefore, she knew what she had to do. I sat there reading Manga online as she worked away behind me, and as usual I did not really pay much attention to what she was doing.
Long story short, I ended up with three different colors in my hair: my crown was brown, and from my ear towards the bottom it was banana blonde and the insides were platinum blonde. Oh, and did I mention that more than half of my hair on the left was gone? Strands and strands of hair were just completely burnt off. Thank goodness it was on the inside bits and my top longer bits covered the damage.
Needless to say the hairdresser blamed it on my hair, claiming it was so damaged that it could not handle the dye (which turned out to be false because the other side was not burnt off; she simply put too much product on one side of my hair). She gave me L’Oreal Gold for no charge, claiming it would fix the damage, but we all knew it was not going to change a thing. What is gone is gone after all.
The moral of the story: Pay attention to what people are doing to you. I noticed that whenever I am getting my nails or hair done, I just space out. If I actually did not let her bleach my hair, I would not have had half of my hair gone.
If I only actually listened to my mother. My mom was so speechless she did not even say, “I told you so.”
This story was originally published on Feb. 11, 2015. It was re-uploaded on Dec. 24, 2020.
