Blond Ambition

   My mother thought that everyone looks better with blond hair.  I'm not kidding. She really believed this and it was pointless to argue with her. My rational (I thought) response, "But Mom, I really don't think Japanese women look better as blonds," fell like a ton of cement in front of an open door when she said "Yes they do."
   My blond journey started early.  My mother was thrilled that her little girl had golden tresses and during those blissful blond times she was determined to keep it that way.  She'd mix a potion called Blondex and rinse my hair with it after every shampoo.  The product was supposed to brighten and preserve blond locks and it did for a while.
   But when I was ten or so my blond started browning and to my mother  it seemed like a terrible downhill spiral.  The color slid from golden blond to dirty blond to dishwater blond to light brown, ending in a miserable mousy brown.  The semantics suggest that  blond is beautiful and brown is quite second rate.
   Five plain brown years later my mother insisted on Clairol as she had insisted on Revlon and I was on the road to being first rate again.  
   I was in high school at the time and my hair was getting lighter and lighter.  Sister Elizabeth mentioned it and I said I had been out in the sun a lot.  Then the principal said I was a bad influence on the other girls.  I told Sister Irene it was my mother's doing but nobody ever took her to task.  We got away with it and by the time I graduated my hair was really, really blond.
   I went to college and hit the harder stuff right away.  Two process at home (or in the dorm smoker) lightening is time consuming not to mention very tricky.  One time my platinum was decidedly green and another time it was blue.  Not old lady bluish but a rather impressive steel blue, if you can picture it.  I had a beautiful blue suit which matched my hair until I corrected the situation.
   Blisters on my scalp from pros in New Jersey and burning white hot breakage from pros in Europe had me recuperating in brunette for years but the blond urge has returned even without my mother's influence.  We're doing blond again and doing fine. We're on our way to platinum, in fact! After all, aren't blonds supposed to have more fun?