Fabulous At 50: Blonde Highlights – Before and After

Update: well, after several weeks of this hair color I realize I hate it. It looked okay at the salon but in “real life” it is too dark and kind of looks orange in places. How come I can’t get the stylist to know what I want even when I bring a picture? Ugg – $85 wasted.

Original post:

Once again, it is time to work on the “Fabulous at 50″ series. This time I am talking highlights. As we get older our hair loses it sheen, can get wirey, thin, and the color go wacky sometimes. My hair is dark blonde and it seems that blonde hair gets a mousy color – think the squeaky kind that runs around looking for cheese. If I don’t put some kind of highlighting in it I look half dead. My skin is pale so the light shade of blond brighten up my face.

As we age it is an uphill battle to look good or even just be presentable at times. We just don’t have the fresh appearance we used to and while we don’t want to look 20, or at least I don’t – 35 would be fine with me, we also don’t want to look like an old hag – once again, I don’t want to look like a haggy babby old woman So you have to do a little extra to be fabulous. Of course, even teenagers get their hair colored these days so doing it at age 50 is nothing special.

My hair has some gray in it too. I don’t mind the gray. I just want it to blend in. I might feel differently if the gray was all over but at this point it isn’t so I am not worrying about it. I think when you highlight your hair you can keep the gray because it can just be another dimension of your hair color and highlighting makes all of the colors work together nicely.

Last time I got my hair highlighted I was less than thrilled. Grace put too many low lights in and it was too dark and a bit orange and brassy in places. I used the L’Oreal Highlighting kit to get most of the dark strands out over the last 2 months but sometimes I messed up and had clumps instead of thin strands. The blond highlights also were too much and a little brassy.

Grace is very skilled at what she does and I just think our communication got off. Communication on hair color and hairstyle is one of the worst problems we women face I think when it comes to beauty. We have an idea of what we want to look like but we don’t want to offend the stylist. The stylist is only as good as our communication skills.

I found that I “assumed” she knew what I wanted last time when I said, sure low lights are fine. This goes for a hair cut too. I didn’t get my hair cut this time as I am growing it out. I don’t have a problem cutting my own hair and had just trimmed it a week ago anyway. I am growing my bangs out too so I really didn’t need a haircut or style.

But, when you are going for a haircut you need to think about what hairstyle goes well with your face shape. Don’t just pick out a picture in the book and expect to look like that person unless your face shape is like theirs. Talk with your stylist and work together to figure out what works for you.

This time I spent about 15 minutes with Grace going over the color chart and showing her several variations of hair shades on models in their hair style books. It made all the difference. I just needed to get her to understand what my ultimate goal was so she could picture what the final result needed to be. Once we got on the same wave length she was able to get the right color combination and it came out like I wanted it to.

Okay, are you ready? Yes, I look like I should be on Star Trek but you know you love it. This is what we go through to be beautiful. As Jessica Simpson is finding out in her new series, there is a price we pay for beauty. In this case it was $85 and having to watch as men walked in a gave me “that” look. See, I go to the salon on the Navy base. Luckily it is in the corner and the barber shop is not near it. Still, men seem to come in there to get a hair cut.

I am very pleased with how my highlights came out and next time Grace will just have to look at her card to find out what I want. Now, can somebody go in my place next time? I hate sitting in the chair for 2 hours.

I am planning on growing my hair out so hopefully next time it will be about 3″ longer before I have to get it highlighted again.

Okay, you can laugh but you know you have been there too. Look at the yellow highlights I had before. Way too much.

Highlighting foil. I am still trying to figure out if this is just aluminum foil or some special foil made just for giving highlights.

Great blond highlights and low lights.

Still looks good at home.

I wish I could dry and style my hair this good. I love how round the bottom is. When I dry it the bottom comes out flat. I just can’t keep my arm up long enough with the brush and hair dryer to get it this good. I think I just need my own personal stylist. When I become famous – yeh right!