Hairroin Horror Stories Part 1: The Abominable Ombre

BY: LUIS PAYNE

I remember meeting an acquaintance of my sister one evening over drinks. As the evening progressed we all spoke about numerous topics and naturally we got to the subject of hair. She was talking about how she was thinking about having an ombre done.

Unfortunately, she couldn't afford me. Such is college life. 

Several weeks later, I get a Facebook message from her saying that she just had her hair messed up. Apparently she went to a well renowned Beauty College in Santa Monica, and ended up with a result far from what she wanted.

I soon received pictures of her ill inspired hair and couldn’t really tell what was going on as the picture had strange lighting. I suggested she call the salon and make an appointment and sure enough I spotted her on the schedule two weeks later.

She mentioned in her message that her Ombre went totally wrong and was not the color she wanted. She kept saying that her ends were too brassy.

“No big deal” I thought. “I’ll just re-bleach the ends, tone it, and call it a day”

This poor girl comes in with a big, floppy hat straight out of Blossom. It was cute, but not cute enough for everyday for nearly Three weeks. I brought her back to my chair, eyeballing her brassy wavy ends peeking out as she got herself situated.

“Oh it’s not bad” I thought. 

I saw her shyly remove her hat in my peripheral visions as I fiddle with my color tray. I look back and…

“OH My God!” I exclaim. “I mean I... You didn’t tell me”

“I Know” she says, eyes welling with tears. “They totally trashed my hair.”

“I didn’t really know how to describe it, it mostly looks brassy to me”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so dramatic when you took your hat off, I was just caught off guard, who did this to you? A beauty school?”

“Yeah, one of the senior students” she sniffled. “I was there for almost eight hours, It’s not gonna take that long this time is it?”

“Ok, no - It’s not going to take that long, so just take a deep breath, Here’s some tissue. It’s totally ok- it’s not even that bad. I can fix this no problem” I ran my fingers through her hair studying the strands. I parted through her hair discovering all sorts of surprises.

“Really? I don’t care how much it costs, I have graduation next week - I’m valedictorian and have to give a speech.” She gushed. 

“Besides, I sent photos to my mom and she replied with her credit card number. She demanded I fix it immediately”

“My mom is way more high maintenance than me. She gets her hair colored like every three weeks”

“Ok, Well let me go mix some stuff up and I’ll be right back,” I said as I draped her.

“Ok, I trust you, just do whatever you think looks best."

I headed to the back and confronted our color bar. I frantically looked up, down, left, right; locating specific colors I hoped were in stock.

“Damn, there’s only a little 9/8 left, I’ll have to hide it,” I thought to myself.

“What happened to her hair?”  I hear a stylist say from behind. “

“Did you do that?”

“Yeah, I flat ironed bleached through her hair, added lemon juice and sent her home to rinse”

“AHAHA! you would” she proclaimed

“No dude, a beauty school happened to her” I replied. “Now it’s my job to fix it”

“I had to lie to her face just now and tell her it wasn’t that bad. She like sat down and starting crying.” I whispered.

“Hell, I’d cry too if my hair looked like that” she snickered.

“Ok - aren’t you SO thankful we have the power and ability to control the way we look? I don’t know how regular society does it,” I proclaimed.

“I don’t know, some of your looks are out of control,” she snapped.

“Whatever” I hissed back.

“So, What are you gonna do?”

“Well” I said thoughtfully as I reached for the developer...

TO BE CONTINUED!!