Reaching Out

In an effort to actually use the stuff I have constantly bought over the years, I have resolved to do the following:

( all under a cut to save your f-list lol )

Ever since I cut my hair, I've been feeling dissatisfied with myself. I wasn't ready to go for a huge change like that, for one. I feel like it should have been a more special occasion, a better reason, like the beginning of a new life for me. A bigger fanfare should have accompanied it, not the quiver of excitement that I got from the few friends surrounding me at the time, and my best friend wasn't even there to witness it (nor did she get excited at all when I told her about it, and I had to approach her with the pictures rather than she asking me because I guess she doesn't care as much these days).

Secondly, for such a drastic cut, and a huge step of dyeing my entire head, it's not a very great colour. It's a nice brown, to be sure, and it's got lighter brown layers. It's - well, it's nice. But it's not fabulous. I feel like a regular person dyeing their hair some other colour that's close to their natural colour but not quite, and that's just silly. The problem with dyeing is that if one really likes the colour, one has to maintain it, and that's about forty to fifty dollars every few months. It's a little annoying, personally.

Thirdly, for a drastic cut and dye-job, nothing really permanently beautiful was done to it. The reason why I stuck with long hair was because my hair's naturally straight, and I figured that if I could never pull off the curly-haired diva (because perms are never permanent), I could do the long-haired elegant diva. Hence why I stuck with it. But now with it short, I could supposedly do more with it, but how could it matter when the next day it just goes back to what it was? I could texture my hair, but that's $150 a year to keep curly. Not to mention I've busted that amount of money on curling products (curlers of different kinds, gels, and a hairdryer) for the sake of curls.

Then there is the realization that yes, in fact, people can fuck with my appearance. While I do like playing Little Dollie once in a while, I realize that once I get into acting and theatre, and if I do get into modelling, what people see is what they can control. This is an uncomfortable fact: my hair, which I previously thought was my own and something no one can fuck with, apparently is not out of bounds for criticism.

Because of all this, I've been feeling... guilty. For being vain. This has never happened before. Before this, I could check myself out in the mirror and I'd see humour in being vain. But this is me going out of my way to be beautiful in my own ideal and when I don't succeed I end up feeling like I'm defeated, somehow. Then when I do succeed, after the initial euphoria I feel bad for having actually spent so much effort in being vain.

It's like I spent so much time building up a mask and I'm proud of it, when I should be proud of who / what I am without the mask.

It doesn't help when people seem to love how I look now. That my hair is healthier looking doesn't seem to mean anything to me since I can't really see it. That I look nicer with makeup on makes me feel like I constantly need enhancers just to be seen as pretty. It's like I need to put effort into making people like what they see. I don't understand how this works when I've never felt this way before.

Just as I was sick of people telling me that "my hair's too long, get it cut", so am I now sick of "your hair's so pretty now". As much as it's positive attention, I'd like it to be for something that I chose for myself: shoulder-length, straight (boring) brown hair isn't what I bargained for.

Therefore, I shall take advantage of Melanie's offer of a free re-colouring job. I'm going to get my head coloured a very deep violet and layered with magenta. I was looking at the colour swatches while at Stanhope the other day and I'm terrifically excited about that.

I am also going to get some more product to hold my hair in place whenever I curl it myself (pillow rollers are actually really good) and I'm still going to experiment with the other curlers I've bought.

I am going to stop reaching for the damned foundation everytime I'm at the mirror.

I have already done something that adds a piece to myself, something that no one could ever possibly fuck with, EVER, and if they try to, I will personally cut them off from my life very violently (in a verbal sense). More on this later, and I promise it'll be awesome.

So I actually did manage to get some sleep that night... it was uncomfortable and I woke up several times to manually shift positions, and I woke up at 5am. Walked with Sean and Elie to Holiday Inn, and we were there uber-early. Hung around doing mostly nothing while others got their hair prepped some more, redone here and there, and after a while, I went to get my face done up for the show.

Stella works at Sykea, another salon on my street, except that there's a focus on make-up, manicures and the like. She had an inspiration to work with - greens, blues, and smokey gray - and she had fun defining the borders of the eyeshadow. Asian eyes are flat, unlike the hooded Caucasian eyes, so they can be pretty much any shape the artist wants them to be, really. She also said I had a good bone structure for makeup. I'm gonna take that as a compliment.

People find me incredibly different with makeup on, particularly dark makeup that utilises eyeliner. In the chair of a makeup artist, I tend to be a good little girl and sit there and quietly take the pencils and whatnot, because I'm there at the capable hands of a professional, and I've done it twice before: for the Bucket Truck music video and for the Shelter for Thieves music video. After they're done with me, though, I tend to look extremely different, just not normal. Normally I look pretty blah. Afterwards, I look a lot more exotic and I have a lot more presence.

It sometimes bothers me that I need makeup to gain presence. It bothers me that anybody should need enchancers to gain presence.

Since everyone else was getting their faces done, I had no need to do anything besides wait for Donna to remove my curlers (which were STILL IN), so she put me in charge of making sure all the collection models had the products used in their hair. We had to carry them onstage, and pretty much advertise them all day.

Finally, I was the last to get her hair done again. and Donna cut my bangs into a V-shape, took out the curlers and pulled them all over the place.

For reference's sake, click here and look at the model on the bottom right. This was the style I'm supposed to be: the Fantastis Water Sprite (modelled after a spider's web).

Nobody could look at me without going "Oh my God".

All of us collection models for the series looked amazing. Pictures will be forthcoming as soon as Elie resizes everything for a more picture-friendly post.

Donna was especially proud of the style, since I went from flat long hair to short springy spidery-webbed hair. With the makeup, I was one of the more striking models. I wish I could show you the others, though. Andrea had a medusa-like style which was simply incredible, and Jody had issues with the colour yesterday that was fixed, and she was given extensions - a vast difference from the quiet brunnette hairstyle she had the day before.

We went down to the ballroom, and did a walk on the catwalk, and the belle du jour had to stand off to the side for the first half of the show, and we were brought back onstage later to be showcased on what they had done to our hair.

Donna had assigned Elie to be a cut model, and she worked on him really good. As Donna finished Elie off, Lori asked him how much hair he had taken off earlier in the year (12 inches), and Donna motioned for me to come onstage and Lori brought out my hair, and Donna showed off what a radical change it was. "She come to me and say she don't want no cut, I tell her, girl, you gonna look beautiful when I'm done with you but I ain't gonna let you go with no haircut! So now look at her, she's beautiful. She's gonna go out and find a new boyfriend now."

Kyla was another cut model; her hair was cut wet whereas Elie's was cut dry, and she was given a mullet-like cut which looked fabulous. Her twin sister, Kelsey, one of the collection models and standing right next to me, was not so pleased, and spent some time saying how horrible it was. This is bad because we were extremely close to some audience members, and Sean had to warn her that it was an advertising show, and it looked bad if one of the models disagreed with the hairsytlists.

Finally, we were let go for a break, and as we walked back to the elevator, Sean gave me a hug, and apologized for being moody in the morning (he had gotten no sleep the night before and was therefore cranky enough to ignore all of my affectionate overtures on the way to the Holiday Inn). Then he said, "I'm jealous now, Donna said you're going to find a new boyfriend."

I just said, "aww" because I don't joke about stuff like that. During the break, I spent half my time on his lap cuddling because we were both really tired.

The second half of the show was just as bad... or perhaps worse, because Kelsey, when Sean was no longer talking to her because he was way too tired, turned to me instead, to whine and complain about standing for so long. It seemed that no matter how much I reminded her that it was a professional show, we were there to represent L'Oreal Professionals, and that everyone else was going through the same pain, she still kept on whining and slouching, bending over and leaning, and just all-round being a rotten sport.

I was concerned about Sean, because not only was he swaying while trying to stand perfectly still, he looked so tired and was trying so hard not to yawn it was like he was almost in tears.

Then, of course, Kelsey (with her twin who had been making fun and teasing Sean since the first time they met him the day before) leant over to me and whispered, "Are you and Sean dating?"

"Not really. He just broke up, so it's not a good idea."

"Oh." Pause. "He's a wicked flirt for someone who just broke up."

I decided not to bother.

Towards the end, Donna motioned for Sean to take some instructions, and Sean seemed unsure of it.

Storytime: the day before Elie had asked, "What should the guys wear, Donna?"

Donna replied, "Wear a suit."

"What kind of suit? A bathing suit?"

"Well, a proper one, but if you wanna bring a bathing suit, that's cool too."

So while Elie did turn out in a spiffy navy blue suit, he called for Donna's attention and proudly showed her the bright blue swimshorts he had brought along. Donna's eyes widened, and she exclaimed, "YOU ARE WEARING THAT FOR MY GRAND FINALE. Okay? Okay? You are wearing that!"

So, at the very end when all models were called on stage for one final pose, Donna turned around, and said, "Where's my boyfriend? Bring my boyfriend onstage."

Elie walks out, beautiful hair, beautiful white shirt, beautiful navy blue suit......... BRIGHT BLUE SWIMMING TRUNKS. And the crowd went wild. It was an awesome, awesome finale.

The next post will have pictures.

Yesterday, I went with Alicia, Elie and Sean to answer a L'Oreal call for hair models. The show is on Sunday, and yesterday we were discussing who would model what, and what would be done to whose hair. Today, we'll be going to further discuss and finalize what will be done on the day, and those who need their hair prepped will get it done.

There're two hairstylists in charge who will be doing most of the work of styling and colouring: Lori, who is based on Bedford and will be doing the colouring, and Donna, who is from Toronto and will be doing the cutting.

Suffice to say, Donna and I came to loggerheads very quickly over my hair. She wanted to cut, cut cut cut, and I said I wanted to keep my length. She kept asking me what I was doing there if I didn't want my hair cut, I said I wanted a style with new colours, and curls. The stylists, however, were lacking a proper cutting model, and it naturally fell to me to be one of them since I have an insane amount of hair to deal with. Lori was shocked to see the length of my hair: I had told her I had very long hair, but she wasn't expecting it to be that long.

Donna talks very rapidly, she's very forceful, brisk, bossy, and quick. She asked me if I wanted a boyfriend (at this point Sean moves away from his seat next to me), I said I didn't give a damn, and she told me, "it's just hair. It does nothing for you right now. This length - you don't need it."

Damn straight I do. My hair's been the one defining feature of mine throughout the years when everybody else shifts and tries to blend into the rest of the world because they're too afraid to stand out. My hair's the first thing people are surprised by, my not-so-secret. Brushing my hair's one of the few things that calms me down. There's a lot of history in it, and you can't just cut off history for no good reason.

And Donna just lost it at me. "This," she said, "is a professional event. We are representing L'Oreal International. Investors are watching this event even though it's in a room away from their offices. A hundred people will be in that room watching. We can't let you walk off with the same style you've had. That is not professional. You're here to be a hair model, and you can't do that without some cutting with that length of hair."

Professionalism is of course one of the things I strive for, so if she'd started on that note, I probably would've given in earlier. To be a model, it's not good to have attitude. It's one thing to have attitude on stage, while modelling, because models do have stand out, but in the process of styling, it's not a good thing to be inflexible. I'm disappointed not to be one of the models for the core six styles that are now in season (extremely funkily dressed hairstyles, I must say I love doing that sort of thing, but the bangs around my face prevented me from being one of the models for which I would have been perfect for), but I'm an attention whore and as long as I get prettied up and photographed, I don't mind.

So Donna's going to incorporate my short hairstyle up front into the style, she's going to layer my hair up, and then from there I'll lose about half of everything, since she's cutting it to just over my breasts (my hair is currently long enough that Sean can complain he can't see my ass).

At one point another hairdresser there said, "We can donate it to wig-making for cancer victims if it'll make you feel better."

I replied, "If that really did make me feel better, I would have done it a long time ago."

How much does the pursuit of beauty cost? I didn't have an answer, because I was ready for a little change, but what Donna suggested was crazily drastic, almost as bad as my going from a long-haired look into a seemingly short cut. Is it worth some self-esteem? Is it worth cutting away history?

Lori and Donna began discussing the colours for my hair - reds, oranges and pinks. I told Lori I couldn't do orange: the colour annoys me so. But the reds have to be in, Donna stared into my eyes to determine their colour to decide this.

I was extremely excited when I left, but a while into the evening, I felt scared. This was, after all, one of my last redeeming physical features that, left untouched, looked pretty decent.

I tried to go to the funk show at the Gorsebrook Pub afterwards with Elie and Sean, to calm down and unwind, but none of us managed to do so for various reasons, and we ended up going to Shopper's. I asked Sean to cuddle with me before he went home, which he obliged, and I told him about various things, and I said how scared I was about the haircut that Donna was going to butcher on my hair.

Sean said, "well, it's just hair. You're still you, and I like you better than I like your hair."

Hearing those words made me feel much better. I'm so used to people saying derisively how much I had to cut my hair, as if it was such a sin to have long hair, and it constantly felt like it was a personality defect that I didn't have a haircut, to the point I associated my hair closely to my self. I've probably mentioned before how it felt like since they couldn't change me on the outside, they'd do it on the inside.

The disassociation made me feel much better about the haircut. I'm still scared, of course, but it's for a professional show, done by professional hairstylist, and Donna is, after all, an award-winning stylist and she's come all the way from Toronto.

We'll see what happened with my hair.

"What do you call a colour so rich, you can feel it?"

I call it a dye paste that won't wash off.

What is it with hairdyes and girls these days? I understand it if you want a whole different colour - you're tired of being a brunette, so you want to see whether blondes do have more fun, or maybe you have boring black hair like mine, and you want to spice it up with a few daring streaks. I understand bright striking colours, stuff that will make you stand out and is well worth the hundred of dollars of damage you'll do to your hair.

What I don't get, however, is when a girl with brown hair, let's say it'd be classified as Shade 213, goes off to find -- brown hair dye.

Shade 213.

What is the fucking point?

Does hair dye really give shine to your hair? Does it make it look all that vibrant? That's what girls seem to be doing these days - dyeing their hair for the shine, the luster, the beautiful colour that they can flick to be noticed.

How about just taking fucking care of your hair? Shampoo it every other day. Let it dry naturally. Don't burn it with a hairdryer too close, and don't butcher it with perms. Brush it. De-tangle your hair. Or henna it, that's an all-natural alternative to haircare AND hair-dye, which unfortunately only works well if you have lighter coloured hair. But dark hair like mine still gets a kind of protection by using henna. Of course, I can't use it now, since I have colour in my hair, the henna would fuck up the chemicals in the dye. Henna + dye chemicals.... not a good idea.

And if you're going to dye your hair, please do it some colour OTHER than your natural colour. Because that's really fucking pointless. And what's with all this worrying about whether your hair colour will "match your skintone" or some stupid shit like that? That's like saying Asians are yellow so they look horrible with blond hair. Asians looking terrible with blond hair has nothing to do with skintone! They just look stupid with blond hair because EVERYBODY ELSE has blond hair! Asians are terribly unimaginative in that respect. My hairdresser tells me, "you're the first Asian girl I've had who wants something other than blond."

Some Asians look beautiful with blond hair. This is true. Asians tend to look alike, and so they take up a trend to be different and after a while they end up looking alike again.

And the models. The hairdye is supposed to enhance the beauty of a young lady. Why are you using already beautiful models in your commercials? I think we all know by now, we're never going to look like the beautiful girls on TV - what's wrong with "keeping it real, yo"? How about taking an ordinary girl-next-door and showing whether hairdye really works in giving her confidence?

That will never happen, of course.

Because it isn't true.

Hair gives one confidence, this is true. The look, the style, the flick over the shoulder, and the eyes shyly overcast by bangs - these all contribute to a girl's attractiveness. But first... we need to believe we can do that to our hair, and not think hair is "all you" only when it comes from a bottle.

Yesterday, I got my hair cut.

Not a full cut, though, just along the hairline, all cut short to give the illusion of short hair when I have the rest of my hair tied up behind me. A lot of people have been fooled by this, and this pleases me, because it's the exact reaction I wanted - a change, but not a change, sort of superficial, more flexibility in my appearance, but still maintain the core of the rest of it.

For those who don't know what I look like, my hair has reached beyond the small of my back and before the haircut, was touching the back of my thighs. I had my last major haircut in 1997, when my hair was as short as my new hairstyle looks now. I let it grow, had some cuts in '98 and '99, and after that, I sort of let my hair go to seed. Of course, I had to randomly chop off some split ends. But in general, it has been growing long and unevenly due to my random cutting.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling self-destructive, I sit next to the trashcan with a pair of scissors, and start viciously cutting off random bits of hair. I don't do it very often now. Cutting my hair was preferrable to the option of cutting my flesh. That, and I'm a bit vain when it comes to my hair, so I get turned off by my self-destructive moods after a while.

I honestly love my hair. I love its length, I love its blackness, I love the unevenness, I love everything about it except the split ends. I have had several compliments on my hair. I had no bangs though, so I always ended up feeling bald because my forehead is so wide.

It troubles me, therefore, when people close to me tell me to cut my hair. Why do they want me to cut my hair? "Because it's too long". I'm aware that it's touching the floor and that it's heavy so sheds a lot. But that's not too long. Too long indicates that I can't (or won't) take responsibility for it. My best friend says that the way I tied it up looks messy. (I tended to tie my hair up in a "bun", which only ended up looking like a loop with the ends hanging down.) I've always liked the way it looked, but she said it looked "strange" and that since "people judge by appearances, they'll have a negative impression." I haven't exactly given a negative impression of myself through my appearance. Just my behaviour.

My mother says it's too long. "It'll get caught in machinery," she says. When will I ever go near machinery?

Another close friend just says it's too long and never gives a straight reason.

What's wrong with long hair? When I hear "it's too long", I always feel like I'm "too much". Which I suppose I can be since I can tend towards superficial flambouyancy.

So I'd consider cutting my hair and think, "I can't handle losing it all now." I look at my hair and marvel how it flows down my back. I bend over and brush my hair over my head. I feel its length between my fingers. I hear it swish behind my ear when I toss it back.

This length of hair is more than just hair. It's a source of pride, and it's a source of comfort. It's an indication of how much I trust people: only those I really trust are asked to brush my hair. If I feel uncomfortable with someone touching my hair, chances are, I just dislike that person.

Very long hair like mine is rare these days. People seem to have the impression that long hair is a lot of trouble. They wonder how I manage to take care of it, how often I wash it. I tell them that it's not a whole lot of maintainence at all. One gets used to washing hair, and after a while, one gets the knack of washing hair in thirty minutes instead of taking hours like most people assume. (When I wash my hair, I take a shorter time than my brother takes when he's having his everday shower.) That, and since I just leave it long, I don't go to the hairdresser. Beginning of last year though, I started dyeing a streak of my hair from the front down a beautiful deep pink colour.

I like trying to curl my hair because it's straight and boring. When I do that, my best friend complains that it looks messy. That's what curly hair is like. Messy.

When I cut my hair, she said, It looks glossy now.

But that's only because it's all an even length now. Uneven hair doesn't look glossy. That's why Pantene commercials all have women who have the exact same hairstyle.

When I walk around in school with my hair down, I make a statement as the only Chinese person with really long hair.

Now, I have short hair and long hair. I make a statement too: Sometimes, things aren't what they seem to be.

I am granted more flexibility by this hairstyle - if I want to appear with long hair, I let it down. When I want to have short hair, I just hide the long hair.

But the problem with these short hairdos is that they have to be maintained. I have to get my short hair cut once in a while, and it'll have to be with this hairdresser because she's the only one who can do it, who's familiar with the style (we worked together on this) and my hair.

The reactions to my new cut has given me an idea of what people thought of my hair too. Most said, "Looks nice. Interesting." The lady who serves me hot chocolate at the Tim Horton's next to the library said, "I thought you cut it all off. I was thinking whether you'd gone crazy." A couple of friends said, "Oh thank God it's still there. I don't think I could handle you with short hair."

See what I mean, by hair being attached to a certain personality?

I am me, and I have long hair.

Nonetheless, I got my hair cut, and I'm inordinately pleased by it. I can still run a brush through my hair and feel the length. But I can also push my hair out of my eyes and above my forehead so I don't appear to be balding. I can tease it to appear like I have curls in front. I can play dress-up, pretend to be a boy, maybe.

And I still have long hair.