Low maintenance

We were watching Big Brother last night (I make no apologies but I was doing other stuff at the same time) and HF was going absolutely spare at the waste of space that is "Nicky" who is the very definition of the word high maintenance. He was extremely angry at how shallow she was. I asked him if he thought I was high maintenance and he rather sweetly said I wasn't at all (apart from obviously needing constant reassurance, but no-one's perfect).

Anyway, so I'm a pretty low maintenance girl, I would say. I don't wear make-up to work. Or to the gym. I only in fact wear it when I am going out somewhere of an evening, which these days seems to be increasingly less frequently. And if I'm really doing myself up, I don't spend more than half an hour, tops (of course, if I'm drinking simultaneously it tends to take a bit longer due to all the redoing it after smearing mascara on my cheek and earlobe).

My skincare regime is pretty brief and while I obviously wash and condition my hair, I have no time for all these new-fangled treatments. I have recently discovered that actually, sometimes, I quite like straightening my hair. But if I can't be bothered, I just tie it back and try and detract from it with a slightly manic smile.

I never paint my nails, I don't do waxing (did it once at home, screamed, wasn't impressed with the results and vowed never to do it again) and only shave my legs infrequently in the winter.

I tend to ignore fashion unless it looks bitchin' on me (some things suit short and curvy - lots of things do not) so a lot of my clothes are pretty old and if I'm going somewhere I'm going to get hot and sweaty, or muddy, I wear something old, loose and comfortable, hang what it looks like.

For a long time I pretty much didn't bother cutting my hair (or got it cut at the student barbers who charged men or women a fiver to get snipped - bargain) but I am becoming quite fond of my crowning glory. I still don't get it cut every six months, do I look like I'm made of money? Could do with a trim right now though...

Anyhoo, getting to the point. As part of the old Paul McKenna weightloss thing, you have to visualise yourself at your ideal weight - and when I visualised myself, I had lovely reddish hair, much like it used to be when I used to dye it.

So I broached the subject at work, just, you know, to get a feeling for whether they looked shocked or horrified. There was a slightly uneasy silence.
Boss said: What would look really nice, frangelita, is if you got several different colours put in. But I've never seen someone who dyed their hair at home without thinking oh, they've dyed their own hair.
I countered with the price - she said oh, it would only cost about £70.

To me, that is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on your hair. Plus, it might look DREADFUL, and then having spent all that money you would feel duty-bound to say oh, thanks and keep schtum. I used to dye my hair and the worst thing that ever happened was I spilt red stuff on the carpet. Plus, my sister dyes her hair a different colour roughly every six weeks and it always looks really good (apart from when she was about 13 and used sun-in and turned her hair to straw).

So what do you think on home hair jobs? Good, bad or ugly? To see me with red hair (admittedly when I was about 15) turn to Quiet Pictures on the links on the side. I did that.

More on that story later.