Friday, February 13, 2009

Hair Color Part 2 - Chinese vs. Black

This post title isn't meant to incite controversy, I just had to keep to the theme of Hair Color Part 1 - Men vs. Women.  It means just because I'm Chinese, doesn't mean that I have black hair  (I have no experience with African American hair - sorry!).


Awesome photo of Vanna Venom.

I recently had this instant messaging conversation about coloring my hair with an Asian friend (who prefers colour over color):
Me: I went from dark brown with gold back to dark brown.  I like the gold better, makes me look like Dova.
Asian friend: huh??
Me: hair color?
Me: colour?
Asian friend: your hair is BLACK!!!
Me: no way! never been!
Asian friend: yes it is!! You are CHINESE!!
Me: OMG, you're making me ROFL at work
Asian friend: don't mess with my head!!!!
Asian friend: you are evil and must be destroyed!!!
Me: seriously, dark brown.  I once got black by my hairdresser by accident and it looked totally wrong
Me: my ends are still black and my roots are dark brown (with gray of course).
Asian friend: what colour is mine then?  I would say black
Me: yours is darker than mine.
Asian friend: bottled black
So there is an assumption that all Asian women have black hair.  I beg to differ.  I've always thought that my hair was dark brown.  The first time I went to color it, my hairdresser carefully matched the color and came up with "Cappuccino".  I've since gone the do-it-yourself route, especially since I only visit my hairdresser once or twice a year for a haircut.

In reference to the "dark brown with gold", I had tried Clairol Natural Instincts Golden Shimmer Hair Color, Golden Cappuccino # 28G. For a few weeks, I really had Dova's beautiful golden highlights.  Unfortunately, it was only a level 2 permanent, so it washed away after a month.  And they don't have the golden blended colors in the level 3 permanent colors.

I'm extremely sensitive to hair color.  Once I had reddish highlights and I hated it.  Once it came out black as mentioned in the IM and it was horrible.  It was as though I had blue highlights - totally unnatural!  See this photo if you dare.  I spend what seems like hours looking at hair color in the store.  Nothing too warm, or it will look too red.  Nothing too cold, or it will look too blue.  If only I can adjust the white balance of my hair in Photoshop!  And my hair is still darker on the ends than it is at the roots from that previous mishap.  This proves that I have brown hair!

2 comments :

Anonymous said...

i was googling short hairstyles and came upon Venom's picture. then came upon this conversation.

and i totally totally agree with you! my chinese friend, her hair is brown. i'm just a lucky chinese who has really really black hair ;) it's the culture in china you know: white white skin, black black hair, small nose and lips and big big eyes. and i ONLY have the black hair, ha ha.

my hair went a little brown once cuz of lack of good nutrition. my mom was so worried; she kept feeding me black sesame stuff.

Anonymous said...

Googling cool hair colors. Came upon this. Love it! So jealous! Lucky for having cool hair! Peace! Thnx for the cool style! Like the convo. See ya!