For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for May 09, 2019

I remember from my mother’s photo albums, she — as a teenger —once dyed her hair strawberry blond; I think it was just a fad, not trying to impress some boy

Oh, Elly. Food coloring? Even if this was the early 1960s, Miss Clairol had been around since the 1950s. Remember “Does she…or doesn’t she? Only her hairdresser knows.”

Food coloring? Her scalp, forehead, the back of her neck and her hands were probably also red.

She looked good until it rained.

Even in those days there were kidiots.

My 16-year-old colors her hair. She pays for & does it herself. Right now it’s black with crimson ends. She does it for no one but herself. I’ve never colored my hair; even now I’m letting it go naturally grey.

I have probably seen worse. You be you miss. Just remember, you have to go to school with that.

If you have straight hair, you want it curly and vice-versa. If you are pale, you want a dark tan and vice-versa. Why do we always want something different? I guess it keeps the economy going. If there was no hair coloring 80% of blondes would be a thing of the past. Remember the story of the jailed French aristocracy turning grey overnight? It was because they didn’t have access to their hairdressers?

Lynn’s Comments:

The food colouring dyed my head a deep brick red. I don’t think it coloured my hair, but I was convinced I looked beguilingly different.

Now I’m wondering if this worked, and it got Colin’s attention.

My mom was a natural redhead, as were a couple of her siblings. She doesn’t remember hating it, but her sister Theresa used to soak her hair with tea to tone it down. So after that, Mom produces 6 offspring, no redheads, and me and one of my sisters dye our hair red.

I’m happy to see people here so tolerant of their kids coloring their hair! My mom, for some reason we could never fathom, hated red hair. My hair is brown, but in sunlight can look very reddish. In her later years, every time she saw me outside I was loudly accused of dying my hair red and got the “I can’t stand red hair” harangue (for the record, I had not used hair coloring of any kind for many years at that point). I shudder to think what she would have done if I had colored my hair blue or purple!

My niece, who is a natural pale blonde, used to dye her hair with Kool-Aid. We never knew what shade she would come up with, and it never lasted very long. I always wondered what that stuff was doing to her hair.

Those of you who think food coloring was a bad idea: I went to high school with a huge guy who hated his light colored hair and dyed it dark with shoe polish. (For those who have never heard of ‘shoe polish’ in this throw-away era, that was a waxy substance applied to shoes to cover scuff marks, back when people only bought a few pairs of shoes a year…)

Hahahahaha

Good thing Elly did not use the blue food coloring, or else she would turn into Marge Simpson.

My kids dyed their hair, shaved their heads, curled their hair, straightened their hair (two different kids there), got dreadlocks (not a good look), cut their hair in all kinds of weird styles … I never cared. No matter what you do to your hair, it will eventually recover.

A boy I had a crush on came to my house to hang out and I thought cooking for him would impress him. I burned our pancakes so badly the smoke alarm went off and the house stayed smoky for a long time. Suffice to say, we didn’t eat my food and we spent the majority of his visit sitting outside on the porch.

Elly, that’s ingenious and inexpensive!!!

My hair was a kind of reddish blond then at 17 the white hair started coming in till I was totally white by the time I was 20. Fortunately it has stayed in.

I was letting my hair do its own thing but it turned into a blah mousy brown with some strands of silver. So I’ve played with teal. A warm purple looks good. I think I’ll try pink this summer. Soon enough the fad will have passed and by then maybe my hair will be more silver than mouse.

Elly takes after her daughter.