After my recent prying of a tall blonde teen to tell her hair dye horror story , emails have been pouring in about similar hair dye fiasco's. Here's one of my favs from recent emails...

I’m a tall brunette teen, and like brunette teens of all heights, I find my hair color to be boring and blah, just a dark mousey brown. Brunettes don’t seem to stand out as much as blondes or even redheads. But when you’re a teen, it’s like a rite of passage, part of the growing up process, to want to experiment with your looks, be it hair or makeup or clothes.

Trouble is, people think tall brunette teens shouldn’t color their hair.

Why? “You stand out enough already because you’re so tall. Why do you want to stand out more?”

Now, if I were looking to dye my hair purple or green, they might have a point. People of any height stick out (and not just their punky spikes) when they color their hair some wild fluorescent shade. Other, shorter brunette teens get to highlight their hair or dye it blonde or red.

But I have an edge they don’t, precisely because of my height: You see, I am so tall, that no one should notice when I start getting dark roots. How many times have I walked down the hall between classes, and passed one girl after another with that telltale, ragged dark strip running down the middle of her scalp like some devil’s mark of fraud?

I bought one of those home kits. I didn’t want to do anything too extreme, since—well, maybe I don’t want to stand out too much, at that. So I decided I would transform my dark mousey brown into a rich auburn—still brown, but now livened with a decided reddish tint.

Except for the plastic gloves included in the package, that only fit half my hand, and the excess dye that splattered everywhere and made the bathroom look as if it just broke out in a bad case of mildew, changing my hair color was relatively painless and I liked the results.

I now had gleaming auburn hair that looked as if it were highlighted with coppery glints. I liked it. I looked—and felt—like autumn: Cool, crisp, ablaze with glorious color.

My mother, grandmother, and all their friends, not so much. They did their best to exaggerate the beauty of my plain, dull brown hair:

“What was wrong with your own hair color? It was such a lovely shade of mahogany . . .” (All this time I matched the furniture and didn’t even know?)

“But you had such beautiful russet hair before . . .” (Exactly. It was the color of potatoes.)

“What do you mean, you thought you looked mousey? But your own color was such a rich sable brown . . .” (Because “sable” sounds so much more elegant than “weasel”—just ask anyone who still dares to sell fur coats.)

Bottom line, the consensus was I was better off with my old brown, “because your height makes you stand out more than enough.”

BUT I’M NOT DOING IT TO STAND OUT!

Mustn’t wear bold, bright colors—they make tall brunette teens stand out more. Shouldn’t wear high heels—tall brunette teen is already tall enough. Can’t dye the hair—unless it’s done professionally, everyone can always tell when it’s a suicide job (dyed by my own hand)—and that just turns more heads and makes people stare at the tall brunette teen longer and harder, and goodness gracious me, we can’t have that, now can we?

“But you stand out so much already because you’re taller than all the other girls,” they say. “Wouldn’t you rather blend in with your peers?”

Blend in? What are my peers, cake batter?

“Don’t you want to FIT in?”

AARGH! That’s exactly why I want to do all the things other girls do—like coloring my hair!

Because I’m just another typical teen first, and a tall brunette teen second, it was only natural that after a few weeks, I grew bored with the dye job, and applied hair color remover to my phony—I mean, faux autumn tresses.

I thought it would remove the auburn and leave me with my natural, potato weasel brown. Wrong! To my horror, my hair was now a bright yellowish-orange.

Worse than carrots. Worse than pumpkins. Girls, we’re talking squash.

My brother, who’s always such a smart-alec, said if only I was shorter and fatter, everyone could call me “Squash Top.” Thanks, Bro—another bullet dodged thanks to my towering height.

Not to worry, he had another one: “Torch.” As in, “Hey Torch, the Olympics aren’t for another two years yet!” or “Hey Torch, Lady Liberty’s been looking all over for you.”

In desperation I took refuge in the nearest hair salon, where the stylist told me that my only recourse was to color my hair yet again.

That’s how they keep you coming back for more hair coloring month after month—unless you’re willing to let it grow out, which maybe I should have done, and because of my height, might’ve gotten away with without anyone the wiser.

The stylist presented me with a huge board full of hair color samples. Frantically I searched for something close to my original shade. The samples identified as mahogany, russet, and sable all looked alike.

In fact, they all looked like the one I finally settled on: Mousey.

Oh, well. At least it sounds better than “weasely.”

You too can share your tall teen tales here ... or feel free to email me here ...


-->

Return to Tall Teens from Tall Brunette Teen
Return to Tall Women Revolt Homepage from Tall Brunette Teen