Blisters and Scabs

Now, that ought to get your attention. This post falls into the category of, "Thank God I visited this upon myself and not another."

About every 10 weeks or so, I go through the uncomfortable ritual of bleaching my hair. This essentially involves putting corrosive chemicals on my scalp for periods of up to 75 minutes or more. Generally, it's 45 minutes before I begin to experience some discomfort; at about 60 minutes, it becomes downright painful, in a burning, searing sort of way. We (bleach blonds) put ourselves through this is because we never want to pull the product off while our hair is still yellow - we just have to tough it out.

In order to achieve maximum blonding, I use a pre-prepared, 30-volume (peroxide) developer and Wella's cream bleach. This week, I ran out of 30-volume, but had plenty of 20 and 40.

Does anyone else get where I'm going here? I remember a very early, basic algebraic instruction. You know...(-)__________20__10__0__10__20__30__40_________(+). Right? So, you can plainly see how I would assume that a combination of equal parts 20 and 40 volume would result in 30 volume.

My scalp will tell you differently. It certainly notified me the moment my platinum specialist, Berlin, slapped the cold goo on my pate. The instant sting should have been a signal, but I gritted my teeth, donned my plastic cap and went about the business of tightening up Berlin's faux-hawk. While my scalp burned.

At about 15 minutes in, Berlin insisted that I, "take it off, man." ("Dude, I can see your red scalp from here. In fact, it's purple.") So, he rinsed it off with cool water and, while it felt good in one respect, it hurt like a motherfucker in another. I was unable to see the top of my head, but reports were that it was really red. With blisters.

(Additionally, this whole exercise has sparked a lively debate around the back-room table at the salon and there are a couple of guys that are just not talking to each other about it. My word.)

So, at this juncture, I'm in pain, I have yellow hair and sores on my scalp. Totally sexy.

But, we bleach blonds are a sturdy lot and I refuse to go about with yellow hair, so the next day, I "toned" it. Which involves putting yet more corrosive, albeit less-strong and tone-balancing, chemicals on my scalp. For about 20 minutes. I rinsed and the result: yellow roots with dull, peachy-purple ends. Super duper.

The next day, I went about my business and wore a hat while doing it. My hair looked like ass and I monitored the sores for scab formation so I could do what ultimately needed to be done...the reapplication of the 30-volume and bleach, this time with pre-prepared solution. At about 4pm on Day Three, I mixed up a batch and....put it on. No sweat. No real burning (it's all relative at this point). I'm gold, bother literally and figuratively.

I was naturally concerned that my hair would melt so I probably pulled the mixture off before the hair became completely platinum, but I let the experience-so-far dictate my caution. The hair is a little on the fluffy-baby-chick side of yellow, but a certain improvement, with very little further skin damage. I'll use some blue shampoo and I'll be right as rain, I'm pretty sure.

Wow.. What an odyssey. I'm not sure how Gwen Stefani does it.