Can the next east coast meet up be a girlie one where these fabulous women can change scarecrows like yours truly into swans? Please?

Anytime you go lighter then your natural hair whether you have black hair or brown hair you are essentially bleaching your hair at varying degrees. If you have generally healthy hair and highlight it in the summer and once in a while it’s fine. Doing it all the time is no good. Long term effects of this are bad because you strip your hair off it’s natural pigment and replace it with a artificial pigment which dries your hair. Seen too many desi women with hair that looks like straw. I used to work with this woman who wore blue lenses and had blond hair and she tried to pass them off as natural!!! WHY WHY WHY… She was beautiful naturally the way I pictured her. I love jet black hair and unfortunately wasn’t blessed with it. I can thank my mother for it. So every 3 months I color my hair jet black.

Clairol is the category captain for hair color and all their products are really good. If you are looking to maintain your natural hair then I’d suggest Excellence or Preference by L’Oreal or any of the Nice n Easy lines by Clairol. If you are looking for fun highlights try Natural Instincts or Herbal Essences by Clairol which has low ammonia (which in the grand scheme of things means shit because it doesn’t have any lower bleach) or Feria by L’Oreal.

There are tons of try at home highlighting kits available at drug stores but honestly they aren’t worth it because they do not give you the kind of results they boast. I’ve tried them all, infact I’m the guinea pig it’s based on. There is one I really liked and is cheap and easy to use. Garnier’s Nourishing Multilights. It was the easiest product to use at home but sparingly. Don’t go crazy with it

I don’t think I’m the only one who is slightly disturbed by your habits or more accurately how you’re insisting that they don’t adversely affect you, when logically they would.

but refusing to protect yourself w/sunblock b/c “you shouldn’t have to” makes no sense.

But more power to you if you don’t care as you said early. Most women don’t care to look 15 years younger just look good for their age. Enjoy the smokin and bakin

You can take a horse to the water but you can’t make it drink.

Jesus Christ. One thing that occured to me is that I don’t even get this much slack about my “habits” in real life from people who know me personally. Sheesh. I should have just not disclosed any personal information re: my lifestyle. I will now try to stick exclusively to writing comments about politics, culture, etc.

As long as this has become the mother of all personal care threads, any enlightenment 101 you can offer about hair coloring products? Effectiveness, damage to hair, carcinogenic effect, “natural” vs. “non-natural,” etc?

ANNA might want to return to pink hair, after all, and as for me, it’s so boring to be just another Cylon Number Six when there are so many of us who look exactly the same. I’m really trying to find a way to stand out from the Cylon crowd — of course, being a Six I’m a blonde, but most of the readers here…. are probably not, so don’t mind that in answering the question. Just assume that I’m one of the, uh, desi Cylon models.

And please don’t tell anyone about this fit of individuality — if the Cylon powers-that-be find out, they might try to box my brain.

but refusing to protect yourself w/sunblock b/c “you shouldn’t have to” makes no sense.

But more power to you if you don’t care as you said early. Most women don’t care to look 15 years younger just look good for their age. Enjoy the smokin and bakin

You can take a horse to the water but you can’t make it drink.

Jesus Christ. One thing that occured to me is that I don’t even get this much slack in real life from people who know me personally about my “habits”. Sheesh. I should have just not disclosed any personal information re: my lifestyle.