Blonde To Brunette Before & After: My Makeover Liberated Me

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My life-altering blonde to brunette makeover started many moons in the past, with the exact opposite transformation. After I obtained lice in sixth grade, my Mexican mom stated she knew the easiest way to treatment it and bleached my brown hair blonde. This was the primary of numerous transformations to come back: I’d dye, model, and suppress my pure brunette mane for many years, evolving right into a perpetual seashore waved blonde, full with extensions to cement the aesthetic. 

After the lice, puberty hit. I’d grown a number of inches in each course, and at 11 years previous, grown males whistled once I walked by. With that, I totally fabricated my id as a “busty blonde,” bearing the task like armor. I assumed if I beat the stereotype to the punch, I might subvert and defend it. The irrational ideology intensified once I was sexually assaulted by a gaggle of associates as a teen, a reminiscence I buried till school once I started to expertise signs of PTSD. And whereas I did begin remedy, I grew to become blonder, too—adding highlights with every repressed reminiscence. Maybe I aspired to be Barbie: a blonde but lifeless physique that couldn’t understand.

After I turned 30, nonetheless, one thing modified. I not relished my prowess at Princess Peach cosplay and awoke with an timeless urge to return to my brown roots. Whereas this determination seemingly got here out of nowhere—genuinely stunning family and friends—this precisely depicted my inside state. I had simply turn out to be a magnificence author, and so I used to be continuously contemplating aesthetics and hair, and the way little (or a lot) which means they’d. It seems issues solely matter as a lot as you allow them to, and that went for my hair’s assigned significance, too. With this readability, I knew: It was time to let go.

Courtesy of Danielle Sinay.

An abrupt need to alter one’s hair is widespread for survivors. “The act of fixing one’s hair after experiencing trauma is a technique we select to take our energy again,” Amira Johnson, LMSW, a therapist at Berman Psychotherapy, tells me. “Though the act will not be aware and look like comparatively impulsive when it occurs, there is part of us that’s advocating for the ability of self to be put again into our fingers.”

Contemplate the widespread trope of chopping or dyeing your hair after a breakup, or how I chopped my lengthy and luscious hair into an ear-length bob after being assaulted in ninth grade. “Altering hairstyles may characterize coming into a brand new period or chapter in somebody’s life,” Kara Lissy, LCSW, medical director and psychotherapist at A Good Place Therapy, explains. “The shedding of our lifeless ends, which have traveled with us by means of many troublesome months or years, is a illustration of beginning over with much less weight on our shoulders.”

Hair transformations can signify interior therapeutic and shifting from one state of being to a different, provides Johnson—and I used to be actually shifting. In 2021, I endured one thing harking back to what occurred in my teenagers, in addition to surprising being pregnant loss. Regardless of this, atop the psychological impacts of lockdown, I managed to graduate with my Grasp’s from Columbia, and even began working after a lifetime of considering I couldn’t. Returning to my darker roots felt just like the pure subsequent step (or leap) in my lengthy sequence of transformations-in-spite-of-the-odds.

Courtesy of Danielle Sinay.

I texted my trusted colorist, Jaclyn Curti, and stylist, Marc Mena. “I wish to endure a hair transformation,” I started. “I’m going to… darken my hair, and I form of need a shag minimize.” Half-expecting one other exasperated response (my associates yelled, “What do you imply? Your model is blonde!”), I used to be relieved to listen to that each Jaclyn and Marc have been on board and excited for my overhaul. 

Inside per week, I eagerly sat in Curti’s chair, watching as she first dyed my hair shiny pink—it needed to be “crammed in” to verify the brown would stick— nd then add a brunette shade that almost all carefully resembled the one from my childhood photographs. She added a number of highlights round my face to brighten it up a bit, however general, my hair reverted again to its pure state. Or a minimum of what it seemed like on my seventh birthday.

As with working, I deliberate to deal with my transformation by way of interval coaching: Having simply gone brown, dropping my lengthy size concurrently would merely be an excessive amount of. Bodily positive, however primarily emotionally. So once I noticed Marc, we determined to put in a brand new, darker set of Great Lengths extensions, which he’d then layer right into a very mild shag. This is able to permit me to keep up the size whereas nonetheless counting as a serious change (in my thoughts, a minimum of), permitting me to ease my method into sporting pure hair inside a number of months. Gradual and regular wins the race.

Courtesy of Danielle Sinay.

Sitting in Marc’s chair, my new hair—and self—manifested within the mirror. I didn’t acknowledge my reflection, and Marc didn’t, both—a stylist and good friend who’s recognized me for years, even having styled my hair on my marriage ceremony day. “Who’re you?” Marc requested, half in jest as he brushed my freshly chopped strands. “You aren’t the identical one who walked in right here this morning.” Collectively, we laughed, repeatedly inquiring who this new lady was. Buddies who noticed my footage echoed the sentiment: I used to be another person solely. I used to be free.

Courtesy of Danielle Sinay.

However, like my coloration, it’s not that I’m a “new” individual. That is probably the most I’ve felt like myself since I can bear in mind, however nobody might know that to be the case: I’d stored myself secret, burying and bleaching what felt too painful to bear, donning blonde locks like camouflage. However as they washed away, so did the disgrace. And so, as we speak, I’m happy to reintroduce myself and befriend my unfiltered reflection. Roots and all.