Thursday, December 14, 2006

Focal point

My hair isn't quite as ridiculously red as I originally thought. It's actually much the colour I wanted it to be. I was almost disappointed that I wasn't going to stop traffic anytime soon (unless, of course, I went for a major job change involving lollipop in the job title).

But, as always, it made me think. Anyone who was hoping for something amusing, witty and incisive had better switch off now.

When I first dyed it, I thought "oh my God, it's so bright everybody is going to be staring at me". But when I thought about it some more, I realised that wasn't actually the case. If you do something dramatic to your appearance, for example to your hair, it doesn't really make people look at YOU any closer - they are in fact drawn to that one thing. If I think about the comments/compliments I've had about my scarlet locks, they are all along the lines of "your hair looks great" or if I ask what they think they say "it looks really nice" (come on, I work in journalism, everybody is great at lying so nobody's going to tell me if I look like a dog with one notable exception*).

Notice they are not saying "you look good", they are only commenting on that one thing. In fact, by making something stand out, you are drawing attention away from yourself. And I think it applies to other extremes too, like slutty clothes (of which I am a big fan, naturally) . So all those goths you see with eye-catching outfits and unusual-looking hair are actually hiding behind these accoutrements.

I started dying my hair when I was in my teens and yes, I was kind of keen for people not to notice me. When I got my nose pierced, however, it was a pure act of rebellion and - oh, yes, I think that I wanted people to be looking at that, not me. And when I became more confident, happy in love, I took out my nose ring (no, I never wore a nose ring, I'm not a cow, it was a tasteful diamante stud or something) and stopped dying my hair.


Although if I continue along these lines, why did I decide now that I wanted to hide? Actually, this time I don't think I did want to hide. Which is probably why I was a bit taken aback when it came out quite so bright. I would like to think this is just enhancing my natural assets (along with a well-fitting wonderbra), not drawing attention away from the things I am less impressed with. Oh, and there are still plenty of those.

Give me a minute and I might manage to sort out a picture.


*One of my colleagues has a thing about hair cuts. She feels strongly it is inadvisible to do your own hair. She didn't say anything when I came in glowing like the hot end of a poker. When pressed, she said she said she preferred me as "a rich brunette" rather than with actual red hair. I put salt in her tea later.

1 Comments:

Blogger mig bardsley said...

Well either the photo needs more saturation or your colleague needs to change the tint in her glasses.
It looks lovely. And you look stunning.
(This is the totally unbiased opinion of a naturally critical and detached Mum.)
I like the cardi too.

jolly good point about the hiding behind decorations.

15/12/06 12:30 am  

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