I blame Taylor Swift for the following sequence of events: After seeing Sadie sinking in Swift’s “Everything Too Good” (10 minute version) Music Video, I decided to Color my hair red. I could write a dissertation on the cinematic masterpiece texts that never fail to make me cry, the crackling spiske-out, the bowel-disruptive fight scene. But it was not the chemistry or story that imprisoned me.
It was Sink’s Auburn waves – Hair similar to autumn herself had chosen her as a muse. When I saw her I saw inspiration. Maybe it was time for a new era of me … like a red -haired?
To be clear, I did not go through a dramatic division or quarterly life crisis, but I was in a place with reinforcement: I just had a graduation college, trade parties and class schemes for free fall of early adulthood. My friends were scattered over postal code, my job bored me, and I stumbled through my days as someone who mounted Ikea furniture without instructions (which by the way did it – twice).
In the new chapter of my life, I found it difficult to get in touch with my identity and longed for something – everything – to make me feel like another version of myself.
For several days after watching the video I still couldn’t stop thinking about SINK’s hair – it highlights her features perfect. We shared the same freckles, the same pale skin, the same eyes. I could pull off thisI thought. A quick Pinterest Dive in ‘Cowboy copper“Trend, and suddenly this idea became real.
I never dyed my hair before. Of course, my relationship with my light brown style had always been a traumatic limit. In college, it started to fall into lumps and turned my shower drain into a horror movie. Blood tests revealed that my Iud caused hormonal devastation to leave my curls brittle and snapped off at the slightest touch. I spiraled and counted the strings in my ponytail every night.
It took a year to rebuild what I had lost, but I was still not happy with what I looked like. Everyone gets highlightsI reasoned. A small color would not hurt, right?
So I booked the meeting to turn red. When I finally saw my reflection after the transformation, it wasn’t just lively red hair staring back at me – it was a completely different version of myself. She was wild and safe, without effort cool. Red hair has its own power: It is impossible to ignore. I couldn’t help but rejoice in the attention it pulled.
Red hair is undeniably beautiful, and I would not discourage anyone who is the red newfike from trying. But warn: It’s high maintenance. My colorist had warned me, but I underestimated how much effort it would require. Two weeks in, the lively red faded to a dull, fair orange. I returned to the salon every month and chased the first magic. Glance, tinted conditioner and treatments cost me a small fortune. With each trip, my hair became less a source of trust and more of a burden.
When I looked back I made some mistakes. At first, my hair was simply not strong enough for the chemicals. As the color faded so quickly and maintenance was of the utmost importance, my threads were left fragile and broken.
I also developed what I like to call “red-hair blindness”-a self-diagnosed condition where I could not see how red my hair became. Each time the color faded, I would panic and slays on treatments that coated my hair in a bold movie. My shower floor was dashed with dye. My hair became a chaotic mosaic of copper, auburn and pink shades that screamed, “DIY went wrong.”
Eventually, I forgot what I looked like during everything. It was when it met me: no amount of dye would cover what I didn’t want to meet. The uncertainties I tried to surpass were still there and waited.
When the news disappeared and “BROND” came into fashion, I wondered, I wondered, Maybe it’s time to return to me too. So I let go. After two years I removed the color layers and revealed the damaged hair underneath. When the red faded, I felt easier. The disguise was gone. I started to care for my hair back to health and rediscover the soft, familiar brown shade and loose curls that I once took for granted.
I will not lie, I felt enormous frustration because I ruined my hair after everything I had gone through. But during that I also felt relief: I was finally free from the constant maintenance, the battle to maintain a fleeting version of myself. Returning to my natural color felt like starting fresh, and I thought I saw that my hair would be mine again.
When my hair changed, my life also did. I found the strength to leave an unhealthy relationship, rediscovered my passion for writing and carved out a career path that I really love. Instead of relying on external changes, I began to build a version of myself that felt genuine and founded from within.
My trip with red hair taught me this: Restine can be confusing, especially when life drastically switches around you. It is tempting to believe that a physical change will fix what is broken inside. But no hairstyle or color can exceed the uncertainties we face. Beauty does not come from superficial changes. It comes from transforming within and embracing who we really is – no dye necessary.
Olivia Tauber Is a freelance writer based in New York, is passionate about creating authentic stories through personal essays and profiles. Her career began in the company’s publicity at Showtime and Paramount, followed by production for “The Pivot”, an Emmy-nominated series.
