Saturday, November 28, 2009

Red Head

We get a little bored around here without internet to entertain us. I think for that reason more than any other, one of my friends finally talked me into using henna to dye my hair. I have dyed my finger nails several times in good Uyghur fashion, but I had never done my hair. Henna on black hairs gives it the faintest hint of red that reflexes beautifully in the sun light, but on white hair it is a shocking orangery red that looks more like it belongs on a cartoon character.
My normal hair colour is somewhere in the middle and I was always afraid, it could either look good or REALLY bad. One night my roommate and I decided to go for it and dyed our hair together. Our Uyghur teacher even came over to help. She mixed the dye henna powder with strong black tea, an egg, and a little honey and started to slather it on our heads. She then tied a plastic bag on top to keep it from dripping or drying out, and had us wear a head scarf on top of that to keep it warm. We had to sit like this for four hours or so before washing it out.
For the first few days it seemed like a little too intense of a red. But for the next few weeks every time I washed my hair I could see the water turned red and more and more colour came out. Now almost a month later Anne Shirley would be happy to know "it has settled into a real handsome auburn."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where's the picture??? I wanna see your new do :)

Beth said...

that logo on your shirt is vaguely familiar...

KSA said...

Coke - in Hebrew. Pretty cool huh? I got it off of a friend a few years ago. they don't have Uyghur Coke shirts yet, but the local cans do have Uyghur writing on them.